OCR A-Level Film Studies documentary film overview quiz quiz

Simply records reality neutrally without selecting, shaping or framing anything

Only entertains the audience and never sets out to inform or persuade them

Avoids using film form so that the footage stays raw and unmediated

Constructs a representation of reality and makes an argument

Direct address, often through an authoritative voice-over building an argument

Fly-on-the-wall observation that withdraws the filmmaker and simply watches events

The filmmaker interacting with subjects through interviews and on-screen presence

Mood and association over argument, foregrounding the documentary's own construction

Expository

Observational

Participatory

Reflexive

A box-office prediction forecasting how many tickets the documentary will sell

A detailed production budget plan listing the costs of cameras, crew and editing

An idea about film by a filmmaker or theorist, applied to the set documentary

A genre label classifying the documentary by its subject matter or its style

Vertov

Nichols

Eisenstein

Grierson

Documentary claims to show the real yet selects, stages, edits and narrates, so it constructs a representation

Documentaries are pure fiction with scripted scenes, paid actors and invented events throughout

Documentaries never use sound, relying only on silent images to record events as they happen

Documentaries are always broadcast completely live and so can never select, edit or shape any of their material

It uses professional actors who are paid to perform scripted scenes for the camera

It represents real people who cannot control the final edit and may be vulnerable

It is too expensive to produce, so funding decisions raise difficult moral questions

It never shows any real events, presenting only reconstructions and staged material

It has had no real effect on how documentaries are made or distributed

It banned voice-overs, forcing every documentary to rely on interviews instead

Cheaper cameras and access, easier manipulation, and new distribution

It made all documentaries observational by removing the filmmaker from the process

Four separate, disconnected sections covering form, mode, theory and debate in turn

A plot summary that retells what happens in the documentary from start to finish

A list of facts about the subject of the documentary with no analysis of film form

One integrated argument that weaves form, mode, theory and debate into a judgement

The specific set documentary

A general abstract theory of truth

Some other unrelated film

The film's box-office takings