This article presents a comparison between two documentaries of latin american’s  filmmakers; “Hermógenes Cayo” (1969) of Jorge Prelorán and “Quilama, Entre el Cielo y la Mar” (2003) of Claudio Mercado.   Although both audiovisuals were performed in different supports, “Hermógenes Cayo” in film and “Quilama Entre el Cielo y la Mar” in video, and that there is a distance of more than 30 years between the creation of both pieces, it is possible to see a continuity in the representational conventions and visual devices, to the extent that it can be argued that Prelorán is the first one to use these conventions and devices , and Mercado shows its consolidation 34 years later. The installation of these codes is part of the transformation process of the anthropological discipline and particularly, of the meaning given to the ethnography since the crisis of representation in the 1980's. In this process, it is possible to recognize the influence of the trends of reflexive anthropology and the emergence of new models of ethnographic representation.