Documentary Film – Its definition and appeal Most of us have seen a documentary, or at least heard of one. So what is a documentary and what makes it so appealing? That’s what we’re going to find out today. A documentary, is basically a film, and as its name suggests it is made to ‘document’ real events. A documentary is always non-fictional, although some essence of drama can be added to it (which makes it a docu-drama.) A documentary is seldom made for entertainment, its making has always been a serious process. The purpose of a documentary, apart from recording real events, is the presentation of said events in a manner that educate, instruct or inspire.
Documentaries have been the oldest films that were created, and are still made to this day, they are the flagships of cinema.Documentary-making is a tradition that is quite significant in order to learn actual film-making, which is why you’ll find it as a subject in most courses in mass communication. Cinema itself started with capturing real life events, and the innovation of showing moving pictures was what kept the film-makers working and the novelty of seeing them what was kept the audience entertained. Cinema has come a long way since then, but it’s important to remember where it all started. Documentaries appeal to the more intellectual segment of cinema-viewers, as they’re different from commercial cinema, which is made solely for entertainment. Great documentaries force the viewers to ‘think’, and therein lies its greatest allure as well as its biggest drawback. Most great documentaries show the reality of the world, some are satirical, some observational and some argumentative. But there is no documentary that won’t give you something to remember and contemplate upon. Source : http:/www.masscommunicationcollege.in/ Search Terms: top mass communication colleges in india, Institute for Mass Communication & Journalism, courses in mass communication