Intro to Documentary- Karina Banda

In Introductory to Documentary Chapter 6, the author introduces us to the 6 types (modes) of documentary: poetic, expository, participatory, observational, reflexive and performative. The two that I am most familiar with even before I read up on documentaries are the expository and participatory modes of documentary. Expository is probably the single most that everyone has been exposed to because of news stories and documentaries on history we are forced to watch in elementary school. Participatory is another type of documentary that is well known because it is a very popular type of way to shoot documentaries now because it is very easy to document while being fully immersed in a culture because cameras are very portable now. The most recent participatory video I can think of that I have watched is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Yd7M3JNlw, of a story of a guy tripping on hallucinogenic frogs. Although it may seem expository at first, the author of Intro to Documentary has pointed out that:  “A film identified with a given mode need not be so entirely… the characteristics of a given mode function as a dominant in a given film: they give structure to the overall film, but they do not dictate or determine every aspect of its organization (100)”. It uses expository to describe things at some parts but the way he has fully immersed himself with these people and their customs is more important I feel and gives it the participatory mode as its dominant.

One mode that I was really surprised to learn about though was the poetic mode. “This mode stresses mood, tone and affect much more than displays of knowledge or acts of persuasion” (103). I would never take things like Rain by Joris Ivens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_MXa9enUfE) or Play of Shadows by Laslo Moholy (http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/1) as being documentary. I took them as being video art but it never occurred to me that video art could work as documentary. Although now in hindsight, it seems fairly obvious that it is documentary because it is documenting things that are real. This made me also go back and realize that the music festival after movies that I always watch can also be classified as poetic documentaries, for example last years Electric Zoo after movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1KMuHRWnBA. Although there is an observational mode present in these types of videos, as they are recording live experiences spontaneously, the dominant mode is still poetic. It is not observational as there is an obvious editor that constructs it in such a way to create a “euphoric” sense of place rather than just simply observing what happens in front of the camera.  They make sure to record the happy people jumping, they play a slow-mo of hair flipping in the wind, and record the hottest people. The viewer is not asked to take a more active role in determining the significance of what is being shown because it is very obvious in what direction the filmmakers wanted to take the video in. There is also an element of performance documentary as there is a lyrical poem spoken throughout it adding to the euphoric feeling of the video but the voice does not dominate the images you see. The video stresses more the mode and affect that this festival is supposed to bring to people.