Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
Documentary
What is a Documentary?
A factual film or television program about an event, person, etc, presenting the facts with little or no fiction
Ways in which factual information is presented can be as varied as for fiction films.
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Many filmakers and viewers regard some staging as legitimate in a documentary if the staging serves the larger purposes of presenting information.
Staging events for the camera need not consign the film into the realm of fiction.
Fires Were Started (1943)
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A documentary may take a stand, state an opinion, or advocate a solution to a problem.
In order to persuade us, the filmmaker marshals evidence, and this evidence is put forth as being factual and reliable.
A documentary may be strongly partisan, but as a documentary, it nonetheless presents itself as providing trustworthy information about its subject.
An unreliable documentary is still a documentary.
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Types of Documentary
�Compilation: film produced by assembling images from archival sources. Ken Burn's The Civil War.
Direct-Cinema: film of an ongoing event as it happens. Also known as Cinéma vérité. [Primary]
Nature: uses microscopic lenses [Microcosmos] or outdoor filming [March of the Penguins]
Portrait: biographic film [Crumb, American Movie]
Synthetic: film with a mixture of archival footage, interviews, and material shot on the fly [Fahrenheit 9/11]
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The Boundaries Between Documentary and Fiction
Can an animated film be a documentary?
Ryan (2004) Dir: Chris Landreth
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Mockumentaries: films that imitate the conventions of documentaries but do not try to fool audiences into thinking that they portray actual people or events.
Zelig (1983) Dir: Woody Allen
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Types of Form in Documentary Films
Categorical Form
Categories are groupings that individuals or societies create to organize their knowledge of the world.
Documentary on butterflies would focus on one species after another.
The challenge of the filmmaker using categorical form is to introduce variations and thereby adjust our expectations.
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Gap-Toothed Women (1987) Dir: Les Blank
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Rhetorical Form: documentary form in which the filmmakers presents a persuasive, explicit argument
The goal of such a film is to persuade the audience to adopt an opinion about the subject matter and perhaps to act on that opinion.
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Four attributes of rhetorical form:
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Types of Rhetorical Argument
1. Arguments from source: some of the films arguments will rely on what are taken to be reliable sources of information. The film may present firsthand accounts of events, expert testimony at a hearing, or interviews with people assumed to be knowledgeable on the subject. ETHOS
2. Subject-centered arguments:the film employs arguments about its subject matte and appeals to beliefs common at the time in a given culture. LOGOS
3. Viewer-centered arguments: the film makes an argument by appealing to the emotions of the viewer. PATHOS
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The River (1937) Dir: Pare Lorentz
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Experimental Film
Willfully nonconformist
Experimental or avant-garde
Reasons for making:
-Deeply personal narratives that seem eccentric in a
mainstream context
-To convey a mood or physical quality
-Explore the possibilities of the medium
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Experimental Film
Themes central to the film include the occult, biker subculture, Catholicism and Nazism; the film also explores the worship of rebel icons of the era
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Experimental Film
Types of Form in Experimental Films
Abstract Form: the whole film's system will be determined by abstract qualities
Theme and variation
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Experimental Film
Types of Form in Experimental Films
An example of Abstract Form: Ballet mecanique
�C. A credits sequence with a stylized, animated figure of Charlie Chaplin introducing the film's title
1. the introduction of the film's rhythmic elements
2. A treatment of objects viewed through prisms
3. Rhythmic movements
4. A comparison of people and machines
5. Rhythmic movements of intertitles and pictures
6. More rhythmic movements, mostly of circular objects
7. Quick dances of objects
8. A return to Chaplin and the opening elements
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Experimental Film
Types of Form in Experimental Films
Associational Form
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Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
Experimental Film
Types of Form in Experimental Films
An Example of Associational Form: A Movie
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Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
Experimental Film
Types of Form in Experimental Films
An Example of Associational Form: A Movie
Segment 1
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Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
Experimental Film
Types of Form in Experimental Films
An Example of Associational Form: A Movie
Segment 2
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Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
Experimental Film
Types of Form in Experimental Films
An Example of Associational Form: A Movie
Segment 3
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Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
Experimental Film
Types of Form in Experimental Films
An Example of Associational Form: A Movie
Segment 4
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Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
The Animated Film
An Example of Experimental Animation: Fuji
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