The word “Actuality” when used to describe the material used in in documentary or non-fiction project, whether it’s film, video, or a photograph means that it was recorded “actually” happening and was not staged or manipulated in anyway.
In a pure sense a documentary film is a story that uses actuality sources to create a non-fiction documentation of some reality. Actuality meaning something that “actually’ happened and was in some way recorded on film, video, still photographs, audio, or other medium. It’s a non-fiction reality, somehow witnessed and recorded. A documentary does not employ actors to recreate a reality of which we have knowledge in some way. As soon as we employ actors, or script what is going to happen, even if it is based on a true story or event, we have created a fictional story.
Interestingly the prehistoric mound pictured here documents the Winter Solstice every year as the sun rises and shines through the window above the passage way on to the back wall of the interior. So doesn’t the construction act as an actuality recoding device however temporary the recording?
A documentary or non-fiction story explores actual events and presents them in a nonfiction context.
The term “Reality TV” does not live up to the “actuality” definition as the program is staged, individuals employed to participate in a fictional “reality” created by the producers of the show.
Traditional documentary format relies on collecting spontaneous coverage of events, unrehearsed interviewing of individuals and working in a non-fiction context. Over the last few years a format termed “Hybrid Documentary” has emerged which basically creates an event and then documents it. One example of this format is American Shopper which documents an event in a Columbus Missouri supermarket and then documents the reaction and participation of the residents. The difference between this approach and a “Reality TV” format is the filmmakers don’t interfere as much. In many ways Super Size Me was a Hybrid since the story was essentially invented.
J R Martin