Documentaries

The documentary is one of the oldest and most visited styles of film making. It can depict anything from monumental earth shattering, eye opening, jaw dropping events right through to delicate personal moments. It can captivate you for months with a format like Planet Earth or for minutes like the format 3 minute wonders. For me it is one of the most important reasons we transfer life to film and there is seemingly no end to the age of the documentary.

You may have guessed that I am a fan. I love the fact that I can be drawn into a programme so much and emerge with a greater understanding of a topic.

Where did it all start?

British filmakers were some of the pioneers of the documentary. Grierson was commissioned in the early part of the twentieth century to make various documentaries. Famously he produced works such as "The Night Train" and "Drifters" in 1928. Drifters is a particularly striking example of early documentary filmaking as it was commissioned to promote British commerce. Grierson did not want to make a plain fact-tracing film but was instead inspired by the idea of storytelling. It was one of the first steps towards the documenary style we are so acustomed to today.

Another important factor that Grierson wove into his documentaries was the idea of the "heroic beauty of ordinary labour" which is again something that has very much been championed by many documentary filmakers to this day.

Throughout the twentieth century filmakers captured the zietgiest by transfering the world around them onto film. Now days we can select from a vast amount of topics with everything from consipary theories to drama documentaries, history lessons to natural wonders, election hysteria to the best way to poach an egg. The list is fantastically endless and as we step into the twenty first century the variety is only growing.

Here are some documentaries I like:

• Observational documentaries
  

"an attempt to simply and spontaneously observe lived life with a minimum intervention"

Observational documentries tend to focus around local issues and as the term suggests they are based on observation rather than a planned narrative. They are time consuming to film and often leave editors whith hours and hours of footage to sift through. They can be unpredictable but this is one of their charms. Observational documentaries mainly concentrate on human issues and rely heavily on emotion. A well filmed and edited observational documentry can be increadibly captivating.

A great example that you should watch if possible is "Sisters in Law" (Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi) which tracks a first female judge and prosecutor in the male dominated country of Cameroon.

• Nature documentaries
  

I find it hard to dislike any nature documentry. I think that, like most people in this country, I have watched more documentries on nature than any other genre and yet I still feel compelled to watch. Especially now that nature is being capured with a more cinematic feel.

A great examlple is Planet Earth (BBC). It is beautifully filmed, cleverly planned and the behind the scenes mini documentaries add more to the magic rather than taking anything away by revealing technique.

• "Things you never realised you'd be interested in" documentaries

I could not think of another way to phrase this genre of documentary. I am including in this programmes that explore the brain, murders, nineteenth centrury highway robbers, egyptian myths and how stuff is made. These documentaries are brilliant and for thirty minutes I become totally engrossed in what they have to say, the story and the focus.

Good examples are "My Brilliant Brain" which was run on channel 5 a few years back and focused on various individuals whose brains just worked differently. An amazing mathemitician, a talented young virtuoso and a gifted artist. Yet the programme revolved around the fact that they had discovered these talents after various degrees of brain damage.

The documentary is certainly cemented into the world of television. I think that it is brilliant and interesting that that we still follow many of the same prinicples as when the concept of documentry first came about in the early 1900s.