John Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, who is often known as the father of British and Canadian documentary film, his ideas though spread far more universally to effect documentary film. His principles that cinemas potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form (Documentary) compared to their fictional counterparts to interpret the modern world. Grierson's meaning of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" did gain some recognition but the threat from staged documentary’s was a worry and also staged a great question.

Photojournalism representation in film: The Image of Journalists in Contemporary Film
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38222

We see that at first light photojournalism in film was not approach with open arms, during the 1920’s and 1930’s photojournalist were seen as a “gossips,” “scoundrels” and “drunks.” This did not help the industry by any means however it still grew and by the 1970s, films such as ‘All the President’s Men’ helping portray a better image for photojournalism within film. but we will still see ‘fictionalized photojournalists’ within the industry, this will therefore be and will continue for the indefinite future.

Documentary in Digital Era
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38242

With the internet such an important platform for any media today, documentary is right up in the digital clouds. With the new ability to ‘organize information into databases’ means that documentaries can be stored and viewed with ease by audiences, like taking channel4, vnetwork and linktv just examples where you can view thousands of documentary at the click of a button. These new digital documentaries promise to make sense of the world in less restrictive ways than others in the past, this added with the freedom of digital technology like DLSR filming the range of documentaries is now unbelievable and it means that the majority of life can be captured and shared with relative ease.

Responsibility and Photography
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38246

Sontag’s expressions on photography suggest a sense of doubt in the concept that photography could facilitate any kind of relationship between self and others. Also that the tensions present within photography have contributed to the modern sense of responsibility, we see this as it discusses about structures of attention to then structures of concern as photographers of past and present reflect and organize their images. The message here is that are the audiences that view photographs having a unique encounter with the spectator of that photograph and how Roland Barthes work is a great influence to this idea.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL JOURNEY
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38267

This article goes into detail in the work of McElwee, one of his films is about Winnie a linguist who is someone he consultants with. This film though is a journey not just for the people on screen but for the film maker as McElwee goes on a journey/quest and this is something that he wants to show to the audience and you are constantly reminded throughout. The voice overs and ‘sneaky’ shots that are put in by McElwee of him help create the atmosphere that the film maker is a huge part of the story and he is the one telling it. Also there is a mention of other practitioners like Van der Keuken and Frank Cole, who like McElwee don’t for fill what they go out to accomplish in their films, there quests lead to nowhere and none reach the quest level that they originally thought was possible.

Real Reality Documentary film
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38269

This article goes into detail about how real documentaries are or can be, how there is only at times a fine line between documentary and soap opera and the only difference there maybe is the actual script. That documentaries are meant to be non-fictional but a lot use social actors which really is just another way of saying they use actors just like a soap would. It looks at documentaries like Made in America to Civil War and explains how these two film narratives come out looking original and truthful. There are a lot of secrets when it comes to documentary and are they real enough to be call them, an example he uses is how he shot ‘Polish Solidarity Movement’ and only filming location was the united states but used achieve footage to compensate.

Charls Forceville 1st person docu
http://www.signsofidentity.de/fileadmin/abstracts/forceville.html

Schema is one of the most fundamental schemas governing human conceptualizing with regard to sense-making. This schema is a way that documentary can be seen as sources, paths and goals compared to journeys, quests and story’s. The interrelationship that is present shows how documentaries can work but these six are by no means concrete because they are there to be misused and mixed around. The relationship is one that is not secure but instead a guideline to the way things can be done in documentary. Schema usage is present in work like Frank Cole’s Life Without Death.

Honest Truths Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38274

Documentary film makers face many ethical challenges, as experimental people they at times will not always follow ethics if they feel that the party involved do not deserve to be shown in a certain light. We see how documentary were at times separated from mainstream media as it gained the trust of audiences and society as a collective, even though they were facing at times economic and ethical scrutiny towards their practices. As a practitioner myself this is something that I will encounter, as a student economic problem will always hinder me but the ethical implications out there with society’s like superhero ones will always be something I need to respect and not take advantage of them because really they are trusting me to portray the truth/mediated truth of their society. As the majority of Documentary filmmakers are small production groups/individuals really they get there standards and ethics from either their own judgement and common sense, or advice and guidance from executives but properly most important from audiences responses like talking to people at events and festivals. Because there are not official rules more just guidelines its down to the individuals that make documentaries and for them to understand the ethics behind what they fabricating.

Aesthetics of Realism
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38275

Realism is a word that can mean different things to different people, in this case documentary makers all have their own notions towards realism. The fact is though as a genre documentary is at a crossroads between fiction and fact which has been and still will be a redefining aesthetic of the genre. In a digital world who knows what you can believe and cannot, with new grounds appearing for both fiction and fact with hybrids appearing it’s not just about what is true and what is fake but that some of this is true and some of this is fake. Thus modern technology has done great things for documentary as it opens up a great many doors however it also closes some as means trust within the genre is at times fragmented. This quote is a great truth but not one that expanse across the entire genre. William Mitchell cites ‘1989 as the dawn of the ‘post-photographic era’ in which traditional film-based photography has been replaced entirely by computerized images, no longer guarantors of visual truths or even signifiers of stable meaning and value’.

Primary Book Sources

Bruzzi, S. (2000). New Documentary: A Critical Introduction . Routledge.

Corner, A. R. (2005). New Challenges for Documentary . University of California Press.

Nichols, B. (1991). Representing Reality. Indianna University Press.