Reading Michael Rabiger’s ‘Directing the Documentary’ made me aware of documentary theorists beyond that of Bill Nichols, whose 6 modes we had previously studied. I was intrigued by Michael Renov’s four modalities of Documentary in his ‘Theorizing Documentary’. Interestingly, I feel as though each documentary assumes the four modalities themselves – 1.record,reveal or persuade 2.persuade or promote 3.analyze or interrogate 4.Express. This opinon however, is subjective. Reading these categories encourages perspective over the extent to which each documentary might utilize each of these modalities. The discussion then becomes, not about whether each documentary has any of these elements or not, but to which degree each documentary has those and what contribution they have to the entire documentary. Uing Nichols’ terms, an ‘observational’ documentary will record, it may, to a degree, promote a perspective ( it may be close to appearing neutral), analyse an atmosphere/environment through stylistic choices, and express an idea or style held important to the director.