History of Documentary

Documentary films have reflected attitudes and driven changes in British society for a century.

Origins of documentary can be traced back to early photography and the nineteenth century print journalism and the eighteenth century graphic cartoons.

Documentary emerged around 1906 and from then documentary films was quickly established as a genre.

The theme focused on the culture of British working life and particularly the working classes.

In the 1920’s and 30’s, documentaries were mainly funded by the government and it’s national agencies, such as the Ministries of Transport, Trade, Information, the General Post Office and Empire Marketing Board.

Pre-1990's

John Grierson used the term documentary in 1926 to refer to any nonfiction film medium. They were single-shot moments captured on film: a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. These short films were called "actuality" films. (The term "documentary" was not coined until 1926.) Very little storytelling took place before the turn of the century, due mostly to technological limitations, namely, that movie cameras could hold only very small amounts of film. Thus, many of the first films, such as those made by Auguste and Louis Lumière, are a minute or less in length.

1900-1920

Travelogue films were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. Some were known as "scenics". Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor and Prizmacolor used travelogues to promote the new color process. (In contrast, Technicolor concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by Hollywood studios for fictional feature films.)Also during this period Frank Hurley's documentary film, South (1919), about the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was released. It documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914.

1920's- 1940

The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most notorious propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl's film Triumph of the Will. Leftist filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed Borinage about the Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a "surrealist" documentary Las Hurdes.

1950-1970

Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct cinema) was dependent on some technical advances in order to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound.

Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in a broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave, the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded.

Modern Documentaries

Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as Super Size Me, March of the Penguins,and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable.

Codes and Conventions

There is normally a voiceover, which will usually be authorative in some way and encourage the audience to think they have some sort of knowledge on the subject.

A convention of documentary is that all events presented to us are seen as ‘real’ by the audience.

Editing and voiceovers can often alter the reality that we are supposedly seeing. Jumpcuts are used a lot.

There is also typical use of natural sounds and settings.

Often, there are uses of archive footage to aid authenticity.

Interviews are key to documentaries and usually the filmmaker will disprove of them in some way. There will always be some sort of bias.

Text will be used to anchor images and to give a sense of time and place.

Non-diegetic sound can be used as a bridge between scenes and can often reflect the mood at the time of the documentary or have some link with the subject discussed.

Set-ups are also used to re-enact typical images we would expect to see. For example, a documentary based in a school, a set-up might be used to show children raising their hands.

Visual coding- Mise en scene can make a person more obvious to the audience, for e.g. a cleaner wearing an overall, gives the audience a clue to who they are. They must look like their occupation.