Testing Types of Documentaries

Today during our lesson, Tilly and I decided that instead of researching into documentaries some more, we'd get a better understanding of the typical ones by practising them ourselves. We did this by collecting 2 of the school's cameras, a tripod and an actress - our friend Helen.

The short clips of the different types of documentaries we filmed were:

• Poetic
• Reflexive
• Observational - hand held shot following Helen up the stairs (Michael Moore style)
• Nick Broomfield's style - one camera filming Helen with sight of the director filming in the corner

Filming this gave us some ideas as to what types of documentaries we'd like to do, although we have lots more research to do before we decide on a topic!