Different from other kinds of films, the documentary title does not build up expectations of what a movie may be. There are less common tropes and unlike many genres, the documentary label on a film produces a variety of different films, typically in an attempt to educate the viewers on some sort of subject. Even within documentary filmmaking, there are multiple different types. There are complication films, direct cinema documentaries, portrait documentary etc. Compilation films are made of existing footage that is put together in order to convey a certain theme, while in contrast, direct cinema is a style of filmmaking that occurs without any interference from the filmmaker. Portrait documentaries typically focus more in on a certain person with a closer look into their life/events surrounding their life.
Interestingly enough portrait documentaries can also inspire future films. A great example of this is how one of my personal favorite documentaries, Citizenfour (2014), inspires, only two years later, Snowden (2016). Citizenfour, a documentary about Edward Snowden, is as real as a documentary can possibly get composed of real events and footage, while Snowden (2016) is a dramatization of those same events.

Documentaries center around two main forms: Categorical and Rhetorical. Rhetorical revolves more around the argument of the filmmaker, encouraging viewers to reflect/take action of a certain subject, while categorical organizes its information in a more straightforward way presenting more data and fact. This made me consider the question: How does each type of documentary change our perspective of events and how do they affect our understanding of truth?

The second type of film this weeks reading examined was Experimental Film. Experimental film is very different than most types of narrative film, which is why experimental film is not for everyone. Many experimental films neglect to tell any type of story and challenge many conventional filmmaking narrative and stylistic films. The two main forms within experimental filmmaking is associational form and abstract form. It is hard for me to comment on my own opinion regarding experimental films because I have not seen very many myself.
The final type discussed in this chapter was the animated film. There are many different types of animation with now the most common all being completed on computers. However even today some filmmakers choose to use a combination of both technology and hand-drawn techniques.

(example above of a hand drawn frame from one of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli films)
Techniques of animation can all be utilized in different ways. When watching an animated feature one must consider the ways in which it was crafted and why it was crafted this way. I personally feel that the less common types, such as puppeteering or stop motion, are typically more interesting because they stick out more as being unique and are able to utilize more creative choices. Both documentary films, animated films and experimental films fall under their own types of film rather than confining themselves to one specific genre.