Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[missdaredevil]

This movie is interspersed with real documentary in a concerntration camp.
*documentaries?*

What are the differences?

Thanks

[pugachevV]

One is singular and one is plural

[yabla]

Your sentence isn't perfect. This is better:

This movie is interspersed with real documentary footage from a concentration camp.

By the way, "real" here is unnecessary and redundant, documentary footage is, by definition, "real". It can be used, however, to stress the point that the footage is genuine, "first hand", footage, not a recreation.

"Documentary" means here that it was filmed of the actual event, "documenting" it. "Footage" is how we refer to sections of film. It comes, I believe, from the fact that film is measured, in Amerca, by the foot.

"Documentary footage" is pieces of film that was taken at a real event, not recreated by the filmmaker.

A "documentary" is a whole movie that usually uses "documentary footage" to explore a real event that took place, or about real people and real places.

"Documentaries" is the plural of "documentary". "My favorite documentaries are Supersize Me and Farenheit 911"

A "mockumentary" is a movie that pretends to be a documentary, but really is not. An example of this is "The Blair Witch Project", which pretends to document a real event but in actuality is completely fiction. This new word comes from the word "mock", which means to imitate, and "documentary".

How about that?

[advoca]

Gee, Miss Daredevil

Why do you not get yourself a decent English-learners dictionary? My dictionary says:

A documentary is a television or radio programme, or a film, which shows real events or provides information about a particular subject.