GENERIC RESEARCH

What is a Documentary 
The term 'documentary' is used to describe  any film which aims to document some aspect of reality. They can take many forms ; from short films documentaries lasting just three minutes, television documentaries or feature length ones that are released in cinemas alongside the latest blockbusters. 'Documentary'  has been described as a 'film making practice a cinematic tradition and ode of audience reception' that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries

History of Documentaries
The first films that could be described as documentaries were 'actualities.'These were single-shot moments captured of film :a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. The Lumiere brothers made many famous ones, such as this one of workers leaving a factory.

1920's
the newsreel tradition is an important progression 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

1920 - 1940
From 1920 to the 1940's most factual or documentary films were propaganda, with their main purpose being t persuade the audience of a point.

1950 - 1970's
The 1950's saw the start o a movement known as 'cinema-verite' (or direct cinema) the fundamentals of the  style include following a person during a crisis with a moving , often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. there are no sit down interviews and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching eighty to one. From there, editors  fin and sculpt the work into a film.

Modern Documentaries
Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as ....super size me, march of the penguins, fahrenheit 9/11.....compared to dramatic narrative films documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive  to film companies because even  limited theatrical release can be highly profitable.