Documentaries must be genuine

The day we watched the documentary about "Capturing Reality" was especially interesting to me. I liked what Richan said about what one is capturing when one films a documentary. She said that she believes a documentary to be about filming reality instead of filming what you want to film, creating a set and showing what you think reality should look like.

I personally like documentaries to be genuine and capture what the world is really like. Documentaries are a window into the world, capturing the essence of a place most people will never get to visit or getting to know an incredible person they mightn't have ever known before. These films tell a story about a place or person or thing that most people would not have the opportunity to experience.

Documentaries, whatever form they come in (though I prefer live action), must capture reality, they must be genuine. People will be genuine and will talk to you if you give them a chance, it is the documentarist's job to capture that genuineness not for the money but for the opportunity to represent someone else's story. The documentarists in "Capturing Reality" stated that people are willing to speak into the camera not for the fame but for the opportunity to tell their story to an unbiased listener, namely the camera.

I believe that is the whole charm of a documentary, and why I love watching them so much, is because they are genuine, telling it like it is.

One of my favorite documentaries is about cuttlefish (National Geographic's Kings of Camouflage) and here are some pictures of cuttlefish from that documentary:

 Here is the smallest and most deadly, (it is called Metasepia and it lives on the bottom of the ocean and is on 6-8cm long):