New types of entertainment

I've never thought as reality TV as a form of documentary, but after reading John Corner's "Drama-Documentary", I am seeing today's entertainment in a new way. There are drama-documentaries, like the movie watched in class "Missiles of October", and docu-dramas, a show like "Real World". Missiles of October depicts the Cuban Missile crisis from both the American and Russian view points. While the content of the film is real, or realistic, the actors in the movie are not the real people in the original situations. The fictional movie is allowed credibility through its documentary format. The information is presented, but it's been carefully constructed, just as the whole movie has been. Docu-dramas are allowed the flexibility of casting actors, perfecting lighting, making the script flow well. But, as we all saw, it doesn't call for a better movie. Drama-Documentaries are popular for today's tv. Corner notes that it is hardly "used as the only mode of depiction within the programme" (33). For example, "Real World, is made of a house of young adults. But watching people live wouldn't be as exciting as watching them fight. The show is constructed so the young adults are always being enticed with confrontation. It is a film social experiment. Though this is an example, it is not the best. Back to movies, "The Thin Blue Line" by Errol Morris, cuts interviews with dramatized flash backs of the crime. Morris mixes the traditional footage of a documentary with something that might be found in a docu-drama. Today's audience wants something more. When watching fiction, they want those things to happen to them so they are placed in realistic settings. When we watch documentaries people want it to flow with a feel of a story, not be set down and coldly told facts. It seems as if this experimental diffusion of formats is to supplement the viewers' need for a more fantastical reality.