The expository mode is a classic mode of documentary. It greatly relies on the verbal commentary and logical argument. Expository films have two kinds of commentary: the voice-of-God commentary and voice-of-authority commentary. The voice-of-God commentary is presented by a speaker who would not be seen in the screen, the voice-of-authority commentary is given by one who is heard and also seen by the audience. Besides, images play a supporting role in the illustration of expository documentary. The commentary organizes images and interprets them, which provides the audience enough clues to understand what is going on with the story.
The expository mode generally is edited in a way called evidentiary editing, which serves to maintain the continuity of the argument and perspective of the commentary. By evidentiary editing filmmaker can select and arrange images as they want to advance the argument better.
The documentary tells the story happened in real life, thus a sense of credibility is required. It is greatly built by the commentary. Mostly the professional and official voice would be presented in this mode to build a sense of credibility, while sometimes unpolished voices were chosen to avoid being so perfect that lose its credibility.
Common sense sometimes is used in expository documentary. It serves as an argument since it is objective and convincing, despite it may work oppositely due to the different time or different content.
Among the six modes of documentary, I see the merits of the expository documentary. The expository mode is one of the most traditional modes of documentary, it fits different themes and events happened in the past and even present. Expository documentary delivers lots of information by commentary, interviews, footage and pictures, and tell the story directly and specifically to the audience. The combination of voice-over (commentary or interview) and images contributes to form a clear and logic story, which allows audiences with different educational levels can have a better understanding of the audience.
Compared with it, the poetic mode of documentary places more emphasis on the expression of mood and tone rather than the continuity of editing and narration, which may be unpopular with most of the audience. The reflective one pays more attention to the director’s reflection on the filming process. Therefore, the reflective documentary may be too abstract and hard for the audience to understand. The director filming the observational documentary works as a neutral observer, who only captures the objective reality happened in the present. While this mode can hardly work with historical documentaries. Besides, commentary, intertitles, interviews and even sound effects would not be adopted in the observational mode, the documentary tends to be tedious for the audience. The performative mode shows the filmmaker’s experience and perspectives by being the character of the documentary and trying out something as an experiment, and the participatory model emphasizes the interaction between the filmmaker and the subject. They are no popular modes of documentary since what most of the filmmaker wants to do is about some events happened in the past. While both of these modes need filmmakers to be on the screen and be involved with the story of the documentary at the present.
From my point of view, the high popularity and board range of application would be reasons why I choose the expository mode of documentary.
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