Types of Movies Chapter 3 Looking at Movies

instructional films

A documentary film that seeks to educate viewers about common interests, rather than persuading them with particular ideas.

propaganda films

A documentary film that systematically disseminates deceptive or distorted information.

Factual Films

A documentary film that, usually, presents people, places, or processes in a straightforward way meant to entertain and instruct without unduly influencing audiences.

Documentary film

A film that purports to be nonfictional. Documentary films take many forms, including instructional, persuasive, and propaganda.

Narrative film

Also known as fiction film. A movie that tells a story -- with characters, places, and events -- that is conceived in the mind of the film's creator. Stories in narrative films may be wholly imaginary or based on true occurrences, and they may be realistic, unrealistic, or both. Compare nonfiction film. (page 127)

Participatory documentary

An approach to nonfiction filmmaking in which the filmmaker interacts with the subjects and situations being recorded and thus becomes part of the film.

Poetic Documentary

An expressive approach to nonfiction filmmaking of a subject by an emphasis on conveying mood and generating ideas, rather than developing a realistic observational experience or communicating an information-driven explanation.

B-roll

Extra footage that isn't the primary shot, used for montages, backgrounds, and cutaways.

voice-over narration

Narration heard concurrently and over a scene but not synchronized to any character who may be talking on the screen.

story formulas

The way a movie's story is structured—its plot—also helps viewers determine what genre it belongs to.

reflexive documentary

a approach to documentary filmmaking that explores and sometimes critiquest the documentary form itself. The documentary production process becomes part of the experience in ways that may challenge viewer expectations of nonfiction filmmaking conventions.

interview

a component of documentary filmmaking, traditionally shot with the person being interviewed speaking to an interviewer who is off camera

experimental film

a film that rejects the conventions of mainstream movies and explores the possibilities of the film medium

observational documentary

an approach to documentary filmmaking that seeks to immerse viewers in an experience as close as is cinematically possible to witnessing events as an invisible observer. Observational documentaries typically rely entirely on b-roll and ias many other signs of mediation as possible.

expository documentary

an approach to documentary filmmaking that uses formal elements, a script prepared in advance, an dan authoritative narrator to explain subject matter to the viewer.

performative documentary

an approach to nonfiction filmmaking related to the participatory documentary. The filmmaker's interaction with the subject matter is deeply personal and often emotional. In performative documentary, the filmmaker's experience is central to the way viewers engage and understand the subject matter.

text and graphics

an element of documentary filmmaking that includes statistics, graphs, maps and text. Text is commonly used to identify interview subjects, dates, and locations presented on screen.

Reenactments/Dramatizations

are okay if the audience knows the footage isn't real

animated film

drawings or other graphical images placed in a series photograph-like sequence to portray movement.

six major American genres

gangster, film noir, science fiction, horror, western, musical

archival materia

preexisting images or sound that is incorporated into a documentary.

Character Types

stock characters that are typical of a genre

computer-generated imagery (CGI)

the application of the field of computer graphics (specifically 3D) to special effects

genre

the characterization of narrative films by form, content, or both.

generic transformation

the process by which a particular genre is adapted to meet the expectations of a changing society

theme

unifying idea that the film expresses through its narrative or imagery

narrator

who or what tells story of a film. The primary narrator in cinema is the camera.