It seems there are various genres that address the audience as citizen instead of consumers: Annette Hill’s “Re-styling Factual TV”(2007) gives an insight as to what defines a genre and its criteria for categorization. The differentiation between genres of factual television is a two-way street: while the audience has the ability to define what subcategory a film belongs to (based on various personal factors), a film categorized as one of higher quality and values will affect the way the audience will perceive it. In other words: a serious, informative documentary that addresses issues of society will have more credibility and impact than a rather entertaining genre such as Reality TV for example (Hill, 2007: p.58). But the operation of arranging
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As Annette Hill formulates in her contribution to Brian Winston’s “Documentary Film Book”(2013): “documentaries are an illusion”(Hill, 2013: p.83). Much like René Magritte taught us with “The Treachery of Images” (this is not a pipe), Annette Hill reminds us in her chapter that a documentary is merely the representation of something. This meta-analysis applies here in the sense that a documentary is a production; therefor an ambiguous orchestrated construction with a creative margin (Hill, 2013: p.84). The script (if there is one), the way of shooting and the editing are crucial componants in the making of a documentary. John Corner calls them a series of transformations “acting as an agency of change as well as of continuity and of connection”(Corner, 1995: p.78). But the freedom of choice in assembling sound and images allows a director to dramatise a subject or to convey specific intentions. Guiding the truth is actually a natural element of documentaries; Grierson calls it the “creative treatment of actuality” (Peter Morris, 1987: p.28). While each snippet is a record of the real world, a finished documentary is a “piece of art” (Winston, 1995: p.181). This does not exclusively apply to the form of a documentary, it also does for its content: Al Gore’s claims, even though their degree of truth is not doubted, are conveying a single aspect of a whole. An Inconvenient Truth lays out an excessive amount of particular scientific facts in order to forge its main case: the melting of the glaciers and its desastrous consequences. The movie’s hybridity mentioned above persists in Corner’s binary separation within the documentary genre: An Inconvenient truth seems to be both “fly on the wall” and “drama-documentary”(Corner, 1996: p.31). The first one being an (supposidely) honest subgenre and candid portrayal of the world,
As Annette Hill formulates in her contribution to Brian Winston’s “Documentary Film Book”(2013): “documentaries are an illusion”(Hill, 2013: p.83). Much like René Magritte taught us with “The Treachery of Images” (this is not a pipe), Annette Hill reminds us in her chapter that a documentary is merely the representation of something. This meta-analysis applies here in the sense that a documentary is a production; therefor an ambiguous orchestrated construction with a creative margin (Hill, 2013: p.84). The script (if there is one), the way of shooting and the editing are crucial componants in the making of a documentary. John Corner calls them a series of transformations “acting as an agency of change as well as of continuity and of connection”(Corner, 1995: p.78). But the freedom of choice in assembling sound and images allows a director to dramatise a subject or to convey specific intentions. Guiding the truth is actually a natural element of documentaries; Grierson calls it the “creative treatment of actuality” (Peter Morris, 1987: p.28). While each snippet is a record of the real world, a finished documentary is a “piece of art” (Winston, 1995: p.181). This does not exclusively apply to the form of a documentary, it also does for its content: Al Gore’s claims, even though their degree of truth is not doubted, are conveying a single aspect of a whole. An Inconvenient Truth lays out an excessive amount of particular scientific facts in order to forge its main case: the melting of the glaciers and its desastrous consequences. The movie’s hybridity mentioned above persists in Corner’s binary separation within the documentary genre: An Inconvenient truth seems to be both “fly on the wall” and “drama-documentary”(Corner, 1996: p.31). The first one being an (supposidely) honest subgenre and candid portrayal of the world,