Essay On Documentary Film

Documentary filmmakers strive to capture the real in their documentary films – a convention used by both fiction and non-fiction films to immerse their audiences into the issue. There are a few common methods used by filmmakers to capture the real, all stemming from Dziga Vertov’s theory of Kino Pravda, which explores the idea of truth in films. Realism is important to filmmaking as it helps question the relation of a film to reality. More often than not, our disbelief are suspended the moment we are exposed to a documentary, and we believe what we see much more easily than when watching, say, a movie or television program. A documentary’s main concern is to present a film taken from reality, and to show that reality to audiences as closely as possible. Thus documentary filmmakers have come up with several conventions to capture the real. Many of these conventions were spotted in Exit

This narration refers not only to the narrator, but also to Guetta and Banksy. The narration by Guetta was heavily dependent on real people and events, as evident from his shadowing of the various street artists and their production and installation processes. On the other hand, Banksy’s narration was largely based on his own interaction with Guetta and with the footages that he shot. According to Nichols (2001, p. 68), such a speech-oriented film like Exit through the Gift Shop (2010) convey meanings that may be worlds apart than what was literally expressed. The narration then, presented different accounts of the real to the audience.

Lastly, the use of talking heads was also another convention used to show the real. There were many interview scenes with talking heads such as Guetta, Banksy, Fairey and Invader throughout the film. Using talking heads allows for them to bear witness to and authenticate the claims of the “true accounts” shown in the film, which further allows the audiences to believe in the realness of the