Types of documentaries

Though I’ve chosen to focus on creating a short film, broadening my knowledge on documentaries is important and may help my process in creating the short film. Through research, I’ve found that there are six types of documentaries: poetic, expository, participatory, observational, reflexive, and performative. Out of these 6, I’ve found that the documentaries I watch are mostly expository and participatory. Because of this trend, I decided to focus on those. 

Participatory documentaries are very common and most likely what comes to mind for many when they hear the word “documentary.” Two great examples of this type of documentaries are Netflix’s “This Is Pop” series and Le Sserafim’s “The World is My Oyster” series on YouTube. Even though these two series’ are the same type of documentary, there are still many differences between them. 

Netflix’s “This Is Pop” covers many different topics, including the rise of boy bands, the origins and continued history of music festivals, and the influence of real life events on music (and vice versa). As an avid enjoyer of music and history, this blend of topics reeled me in, and the type of documentary the studio chose worked perfectly to keep audiences attentive. The interviews from artists, producers, and others who are knowledgeable on the given subject of the episode makes viewers feel that they’re getting an inside scoop on events that they were already of. The interviews also allow for those sharing information to make certain things ‘click’ in the viewers mind, letting them see connections that may otherwise not been made. 

Le Sserafim’s “The World is My Oyster” is a bit different, not only because of the content but because of the purpose. Where “This Is Pop” was trying to inform audiences, this docuseries was meant to explain and share a story with the audience. “The World is My Oyster” follows K-pop girl group Le Sserafim through the process of finalizing the group’s lineup and preparing for their musical debut. This example is split between an observational and participatory documentary, but for the purpose of this blog I will focus on the participatory aspects. The interviews given by the members and by company executives gives outsiders, especially international fans, an insight as to what the process is when creating a new K-pop group. These interviews serve the purpose of allowing the audience to create a connection with the members, as they are the ones being repeatedly interviewed and sharing the complicated emotions that come with debuting as a musical act in South Korea. 

Participatory documentaries are meant to establish a more comfortable atmosphere, as well as “present the filmmaker’s version of the truth as ‘the’ truth” as told in an article by MasterClass. An idea that stems from this, if preparing a documentary, would be to combine the observational and participatory features as Le Sserafim’s docuseries did. I do think creating an exercise like this for my short film’s characters will help me understand them better and get a better idea as to what I hope to achieve with the script. 

Though I watch more participatory documentaries, I still find myself watching expository documentaries, mostly in the form of nature documentaries. One example is National Geographic's "Giants of the Deep Blue," a documentary following whales.

A moment I remember quite well is the narrator creating a comical sort of explanation as to what the whales were doing while communicating through clicks. This allows for the audience to better absorb the new information that's being presented to them by making it easier to digest and less formal. This informality of sorts lets audience have memorable pieces of media to remember the information by, ensuring that audiences come out informed.

Though I quite enjoy this type of documentary, especially when it deals with sea life, I do not see a way to translate it to my short film. For other films where it focuses on one character's perception of the events that unfold, having a narrator that describes the events or even having a character as the narrator may be advantageous, but I do not see this working for the film I've started to create.

Ultimately, each different type of documentary serves a different purpose, whether it's the format of delivery or the expected outcome of the documentary. Being able to connect past examples of documentaries to this new information has helped me understand them better and I hope to continue broadening my scope/ understanding of documentaries.