1. TV Documentaries-Styles and
influences

2. Direct Cinema
• 1960’s
• Cheap, portable, lightweight audio-visual
equipment
• Fly-on-the-wall style- no narrative
• No intervals/rehearsals
• No film lights, staged events or commentary
• No dissolve edits to be used

3. Cinema Verite
• Hand-held camera
• Uses intervals
• Linked to ‘social Realist’ tradition in fiction
film

4. Institutional Documentaries
• Fly-on-the-wall style
• Includes some form of narrative
• Examples of an institutional
documentary include: police
interceptors, 24 hours in A&E,
Airport etc.
• Critical and humorous in the way
these places are represented

5. Docusoaps
• Fast edited
• Multi-strand narratives
• Part of a series and often end on a
cliffhanger
• Very popular
• Based around personalities
• Includes everyday lives and
problems
• Examples include: Made in
Chelsea, The Only Way Is Essex
and Jersey Shore

6. Public affairs Documentaries
• Examples: Panorama and dispatches
• Often broadcasted on BBC and Channel 4
• Normally investigate current affairs and issues

7. Video Diaries
• Reliable and truthful as the subject is filming
themselves
• Examples: ‘Police, Camera, Action’

8. Drama Documentaries
• Exploring social issues
• Drawing attention to miscarriage of justice
• Examples: ‘Hillsborough’, ‘Roots (1977)’
‘Ghandi’

9. Theatrical Documentaries
• Released in the cinema
• Examples include:
‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ –Michael
Moore, ‘Supersize Me’-
Morgan Spurlock
• Authored Documentaries
• Clearly scripted
• Presented from the view
point of a particular
individual

10. Mockumentaries
• Comic effect
• Parodies
• Examples would include: ‘Spinal Tap’ ‘Come
Fly With Me’