1. Expository documentary
More commonly seen on TV than in documentaries made for cinema. Documentary techniques used include voiceover narration, commenting on the images and explaining what is happening in a direct address to the audience. The aim is usually to inform the audience about a place or event etc. with which they are not familiar. Usually will develop an argument - it is not objective.
E.g. America's Most wanted
2. Observational Documentary
Can also be referred to as 'fly-on-the-wall' and it attempts to show the world as it is. Techniques include long takes, hand-held camera, with no interviews or voiceover, in an attempt to capture a slice of real life. The audience should not be aware of the filmmaker, making it very different from other modes e.g. the participatory documentary
E.g.
3. Participatory (interactive) Documentary
In opposition to the observational style, the filmmaker is foregrounded in the participatory mode, making it explicit that the film is made from their point of view. The filmmaker is often the central character in the film with the emphasis on their interaction with the people that they meet and these people's reaction to them. Techniques include filmmaker's voiceover (with pronounced use of 'I'), hand-held camera and an emphasis on informal interviews.
E.g.
4. Reflexive Documentary
Usually associated with experimental documentaries, where the viewer is just as interested in how the film is constructed as they are the actual content.
E.g.
5. Performative Documentary
The final two modes are linked because they both investigate the relationship between the real world and the way in which documentaries represent it. Reflexive documentary reveals how documentaries are produced as representations based on the construction and manipulation of the image. The performative documentary takes this idea further, explicitly challenging the idea of documentary truth, emphasising instead the process of film language itself.
E.g.
