Documentary spectacle and immediacy

In documentary, spectacle is all about immediacy rather than aesthetic quality. New technologies for documentary production have led to immediacy for an audience. It is a widely recognised fact that we are living in a world that demands everything in an instant. With modern technology this has only increased. How has this then been transferred across to the documentary? With documentary film and new technology we have now gained access across the world, from caves to battlefields and even into space. Through this new technology we have gained a new intimacy with the world that is presented to us. However, has this intimacy led to a changing expectation of spectacle in the documentary? And in parallel, has the expectation of aesthetic quality changed? Are the audience wanting more immediacy at the sacrifice of aesthetic quality – and how are filmmakers responding to this? Drawing on my practical experience as a documentary filmmaker, this paper aims to explore how the documentary has shifted, evolved and handled this sense of immediacy and changing aesthetic from the perspective of both the audience and the filmmaker