Conclusion

Abstract

The analysis of documentary futures undertaken in the Chapter 11 emphasized that formal innovation will be circumscribed by commercial imperatives. We can note that it was always this way. As Chapter 1 pointed out, the tradition of documentary filmmaking inaugurated by Grierson was subject to financial restrictions imposed by sponsorship. Grierson acknowledged the effect of sponsorship on developing forms of documentary representation when he observed that documentary filmmakers were limited in their capacity to produce innovative poetic documentaries by the demands of the sponsor for formerly sober documentary works. In light of this history it is, then, ironic that the necessity to deliver audiences and maintain revenue returns from advertisers and sponsors in the era of increasingly commercialized television has resulted in forms of popular factual representation which have refigured documentary representation.