As an emerging field, it is important to map out these certain documentary terminologies as to avoid confusion and to understand the genre in its entirety:
Structure of Interactive Documentary
There is a tendency to expect a structural similarity and a “clear evolutive relation” when tying linear and interactive documentaries. However, new media artist Mitchell Whitelaw states that interactive documentaries shouldn’t be seen this way, and that instead, it should be seen as documentaries that “need not replay the conventions of traditional, linear documentary storytelling” for it “offers its own…
Traditional Documentary to Interactive Documentary
The role of the filmmaker is important in analysing the various choices that are made to demarcate an interactive documentary from the linear documentary form. In this emergent medium, the filmmaker “chooses” to “interact” with reality and “mediate” it through “shooting, editing and showing” (Gaudenzi, 2013, p.13) What is interesting about the documentary form is not so much its attempt…
Audiences in Traditional and Interactive Documentary
In traditional documentary, the audiences will have to sit through the film for at least one to two hours while interactive documentary does not have a broadcast space and a pre-set duration of the time (Dixon, 2015). Interactive documentary allows the audience to learn and experience in a more engaging concept than traditional documentary. Not to say that traditional documentary…
Interactive Documentary
According to Gaudenzi, there is four dominant mode of interactivity which is hypertext, participative, experiential and conversational mode (Gaudenzi, 2013). These modes are important in re-creating the reality and experiences in an interactive documentary. Hypertext mode The hypertext mode is a closed database with multimedia platforms such as videos and audios which acts as a hyperlink for the user to…