| A history student's guide to documentary
film making techniques.
Why important?
A documentary film is a film that presents information about factual
rather than fictional topics. These films have a variety of aims: to
inform viewers, to convey opinions or to create public interest. With
the exception of historical feature films, documentary films influence
the way the public understand the past more than any other medium,
including school history lessons. Over the last 20 years the number of
historical documentaries produced has increased significantly and
television has struggled to satisfy the public appetite for stories
about the past. But also in the last 20 years, historical documentary
production has become increasingly sophisticated in order to meet the
rising expectations of the public and the needs of competing satellite
TV channels. Historical documentary is big business and the educational
goals are constantly under threat from the need to entertain. A number
of common techniques or conventions are used in documentaries to achieve
these aims. As a history student you need to stop simply watching
documentaries and instead start to ‘read’ them, understanding how they
are made.
Exposition
In a documentary, the exposition occurs at the beginning of the film and introduces
the important themes of the film. It is important because it creates the
viewer's first impression and introduces the content.
Historical documentary exposition very often raise a question to be
answered or a problem to be solved by the film. It is common for the
documentary to challenge an established ‘orthodox’ view of an event, or
to present a case based on newly uncovered evidence. Dramatic segments of
the documentary are specially chosen in order to catch the viewer’s
attention at the very beginning.
Actuality
Footage
Actuality is the term for film footage of real life events, places and
people. In a traditional documentary this might be a presenter talking
to camera or interviewed experts (‘talking heads’). Increasingly
documentaries have to include film footage (in glorious HD and 3D of
course) that has been shot in foreign locations, from the air, up a
mountain or underwater. Because the audience now sits in front of
sophisticated home cinema entertainment system, the film maker is
obliged to give even greater consideration to the aesthetics of every
shot. The key question has to be: ‘will this look good?’
Narration
Narration in a documentary is a scripted commentary spoken while the
camera is filming, or added to the soundtrack during the production.
Through this the filmmaker can speak directly to the viewer, offering
information, explanations and opinions. This is unusual in feature
(fictional) films, but very common in documentary. It can be done either
though a presenter talking to camera (‘on-screen dialogue’) or through
an anonymous, unseen (‘voice of god’) narration.
Interviews (Talking heads) -
Oral History
and Expert Historians
The interview is a traditional documentary technique. It allows people
being filmed to speak directly about events (talking heads), prompted by
the questions asked by the filmmaker. The setting of the interview is
carefully chosen to reinforce the message of the interview. Expert
historians are a common feature of historical documentaries and are
typically filmed in front of book cases or at historical sites. The
setting reinforces the authority of the views expressed. Interviews in a
documentary give the viewer a sense that the documentary maker’s views
are mutually shared by another person or source, and thus more valid. To
achieve this, much detail from what may be a one-hour interview has been
edited out, so that clips of only a few minutes are shown. The
interviewer will only ask questions that support the main theme
presented within the documentary, and thus the viewer is given the
impression that this is the only view.
Archival footage
Archival, or stock footage, is material obtained from a film library or
archive and inserted into a documentary to show historical events or to
add detail without the need for additional filming. This can include
still images as well as archive film. Archival footage is particularly
important to historical documentary film making. The concept can also be
extended to include the photography of historical material from archives
which are used to illustrate a documentary film.
Reconstructions
Reconstructions are a relatively recent addition to documentary film.
They are artificial scenes of an event which has been reconstructed and
acted out on film based on information of the event. Reconstructions
have become an almost essential element of documentary film and can even
make up the entire filmed footage of the documentary. (e.g. Days that
Shook the World, BBC, 2003) Reconstructions generally provide factual
information and give the viewer a sense of realism, as if the event
really happened in front of them live. This can be very powerful and/or
entertaining. Film makers often (but not always) indicate that the
footage is not real by using techniques such as blurring, distortion,
lighting effects, changes in camera level, and colour enhancement within
the footage. Reconstructions are one of the most expensive aspects of
modern documentary film making.
Music
Like feature style reconstructions, music is increasingly important in
popular documentaries. Soundtracks can provide a musical context for the
history and can also provide incidental music to help fix the emotional
tone of the message being conveyed. Incidental music is often
‘background’ music, and adds atmosphere to the action. It may take the
form of something as simple as a low, ominous tone suggesting an
impending startling event or to enhance the depiction of a
story-advancing sequence.
Graphics and CGI
(Computer Generated Imagery)
For obvious reasons of technological development, graphical images and
special effects are increasingly important in documentary film.
Traditionally this might have been in the form of a map illustrating
geographical context or a hand built model. Today viewers have come to
expect sophisticated CGI reconstruction of towns that may never have
existed (see Atlantis opposite) or battlefields fully equipped with
thousands of fighting soldiers. CGI also adds significantly to the cost
of film production.
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