assignment #11

Directions:

1) Go to the following website and read about the History of Documentary Filmshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_film

2) Take notes for each of the following topics. A minimum of 3 sentences per topic, IN YOUR OWN WORDS.

Documentary Film Note Outline:

I . History of Documentary Film

A. Pre-1900-The early documentary was a simple one shot captured in film. They will be simple things like workers leaving the factory, a boat leaving and a train leaving the station. Theses kind of films are called "actuality" films.

B. 1900–1920- Travelogue films were very popular in the early 20th century.They had early color movies. It was important for early films to move beyond the concept of scenic.

C. 1920s

1) Romanticism-

Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic films during this time period. Often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For example the films will tell you how a gun was made and how to shoot it from back in the day

2)The city symphony- These kind of of documentaries showed the human ways. They show how humans live and how they react. They also had videos shown a man made way of life.

3) Kino-Pravda- Kino-pravda means "cinematic truth". These had varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time lapse,ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion. This can render reality more accurately than the human eye.

4) Newsreel tradition-

The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film. Newsreels were also sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening.They much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged. The cameramen would usually arrive on site after a major battle and re-enact scenes to film them.

D. 1920s–1940s-

The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most notorious propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl's film, which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by Hitler.

E. 1950s–1970s

1) Cinéma-vérité-

This was dependent on some technical advances in order to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Shooting on location, with smaller crews. The filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded.

2) Political weapons-

In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often conceived as a political weapon. Among the many political documentaries early 1970s; "Chile: A Special Report," a public television's first in depth expository look of the September 1973 overthrow of the legitimate Salvador Allende, Chilean government by the Pinochet armed forces, who ruled by terror.

3) Modern documentaries-

Dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable.The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 20 years from the cinema verité style introduced in the 1960s in which the use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject

4) Documentaries without words-

Films in the documentary form without words have been made. They have been very useful.