Codes and Conventions
The word 'mockumentary' has come from a combination of documentary that has been mocked by the producers of a film or TV show.
A mockumentary is a type of film in which fictional events are presented in the same style as a documentary to create a parody. They can either be comedic or dramatic in form, however the comedic approach is much more appealing to the audience and tends to be much more popular within the genre. Mockumentaries tend to add over dramatic effects to add comedic value to the film. In order to create the overdramatic and comedic effect to the mockumentary, they are often improvised in order to maintain the aspect of reality. Dramatic mockumentaries can often be confused with Docudramas. These types of films typically feature unrealistic situations/scenarios which are very out of the ordinary.
Some examples of mockumentaries would be 'Bruno' and 'Borat', which are both produced by Sacha Baron Cohen. These are both incredibly popular in the film industry, possibly because of their shock factor, as much of the content in the films are very controversial and have crossed the line of being very offensive. Mockumentaries aren't only produced in the form of films. The popular US sitcom 'The Office' definitely fits into the mockumentary genre, and is a great example of a mockumentary themed show, as it adds a comedic value and unrealistic situations to an otherwise very boring, basic office job.
Mockumentaries 'work' because of the expectations we have of a real documentary. When we see a text that looks and sounds real, we naturally tend to believe it. Mockumentaries use a lot of the same codes and conventions as documentaries and related media, such as an authoritative voice-over narrator, or interviewing the cast as if the film is surrounding their real life situations. The narrator usually encourages the audience to believe that they have some sort of specialist knowledge over the subject in question, such as narrators like David Attenborough and Liam Neeson; the voiceover can either be a 'voice of God' where they are only heard and never seen, or a 'voice of authority' where they are seen and heard.
They usually include apparently 'real' footage of events and all events presented to the audience are meant to be perceived as 'real' events. Documentarians also often go to great lengths in order to convince the audience that the content in the documentary is true. Interviews with supposed 'experts' or 'witnesses' are used to authenticate the views expressed in the documentary. Sometimes, they may disagree with the message of the documentary or other opinions that have been presented in the documentary.
Non-diegetic sound is often used in documentaries as a bridge between two scenes, as in documentaries there are often lots of location changes, so smooth sound transitions are often very difficult to do.
Mockumentaries tend to have a 'feel good' nature. Many popular shows focus on characters facing serious, stressful, high risk situations, however, the general tone is positive and light-hearted. Mockumentaries also seem very natural which helps the audience to relate to the action and the characters. There is no laugh track on shows like The Office, Modern Family or Parks and Rec, so we aren't constantly reminded that the show is fictional. The character's speech often comes across as unscripted, due to casual and occasionally awkward dialogue.
As there are usually interviews conducted throughout mockumentaries to give the film a similar feel to a documentary, the subject will usually be framed to the left or right of the screen, following the rule of thirds, meaning that the audiences eyes will always be immediately drawn to the subject in the frame. Close ups are the most common type of shot used in mockumentaries to enable the audience to focus on the character's face and concentrate on the emotions displayed on their face. The interviews are usually static with the camera placed on a tripod, because there isn't really a need for the camera to move around a lot as the purpose of the interview is for the audience to concentrate and focus on the character involved. However, it is common for the camera to make cutaways to things around the room to give an insight into the character's surroundings.
Adding to the 'natural' feel of mockumentaries, the shots taken are usually a lot more of an amateur style than other genres, such as including clips where the camera is still focusing on the subject, or more shaky and sudden camera movements or zooms, to add to the fact that these films are more of a one-on-one setting, with real life characters going through day to day situations. This also makes it more believable to the audience that the events occurring are true, as the film isn't shot as a professional film would be filmed, and seems like a much more low budget, amateur job rather than a high profile Hollywood film.
Still images are often used to assist in what the narrator or interviewee is talking about, which encourages the audience to not just watch the film, but also think about what is actually occurring on the screen. There are usually minimal graphics used, the only time they're really used is to introduce characters involved in the mockumentary so that the audience is aware of who they are.
Wednesday, 24 January 2018
Location Ideas
January 24th 2018
As we finally finalised our film idea and planned our beginning, middle and end; it's finally time to think about locations for our film. We figured that planning our locations would make it much easier to write a script, as we can write it keeping in mind where all of these events are taking place. There won't be a lot of location changes in the film, and most of them are pretty easy to change if necessary.
The main part of the plot, the date, takes place in Bobby's house, so we need a house to film in which has a downstairs bathroom due to the fact that we have the scene where Poppy goes to the bathroom and is then murdered; this would be much easier to carry out if the bathroom was on the same floor as the kitchen, rather than wasting time by filming Poppy travelling through different floors of a house. One of our group members, Maeve, has this in her house, so this is very possible for us to carry out in this location. Maeve's house is also quite plain looking; ie. she has plain cream coloured walls, cream carpet etc. meaning that there isn't any issues with mise en scene in terms of location, because there isn't anything that wouldn't fit the film, and it gives us space to add our own props to make the house fit a serial killer a lot more. We were thinking of adding props like axes which would be hung to a wall, or other typical murder weapons such as knives. This would reflect how Bobby has had a serious past of murder, and this would also be a really entertaining and interesting part to include in the interview stages of the film.
The other areas of the film really only include the interview parts where we initially meet the two main characters. All of these scenes could really be filmed aywhere, but we've decided to follow the approach that is usually taken on 'The Undateables', where they film the people walking through random public places such as streets, along beaches or in public parks. This gives us an opportunity to show a bit of the serial killer's everyday lives when they're not killing, which could be pretty comical to the audience. We're currently thinking about the idea of interviewing Bobby walking through Wallace park, which is a really big public park in Lisburn. This works for us because it's easy to get to for all of our group members so there isn't any travel issues, but it's also really similar to the locations filmed in 'The Undateables', so it really will seem like a real documentary to the audience because it follows the same format that 'The Undateables' has.
As we finally finalised our film idea and planned our beginning, middle and end; it's finally time to think about locations for our film. We figured that planning our locations would make it much easier to write a script, as we can write it keeping in mind where all of these events are taking place. There won't be a lot of location changes in the film, and most of them are pretty easy to change if necessary.
The main part of the plot, the date, takes place in Bobby's house, so we need a house to film in which has a downstairs bathroom due to the fact that we have the scene where Poppy goes to the bathroom and is then murdered; this would be much easier to carry out if the bathroom was on the same floor as the kitchen, rather than wasting time by filming Poppy travelling through different floors of a house. One of our group members, Maeve, has this in her house, so this is very possible for us to carry out in this location. Maeve's house is also quite plain looking; ie. she has plain cream coloured walls, cream carpet etc. meaning that there isn't any issues with mise en scene in terms of location, because there isn't anything that wouldn't fit the film, and it gives us space to add our own props to make the house fit a serial killer a lot more. We were thinking of adding props like axes which would be hung to a wall, or other typical murder weapons such as knives. This would reflect how Bobby has had a serious past of murder, and this would also be a really entertaining and interesting part to include in the interview stages of the film.
The other areas of the film really only include the interview parts where we initially meet the two main characters. All of these scenes could really be filmed aywhere, but we've decided to follow the approach that is usually taken on 'The Undateables', where they film the people walking through random public places such as streets, along beaches or in public parks. This gives us an opportunity to show a bit of the serial killer's everyday lives when they're not killing, which could be pretty comical to the audience. We're currently thinking about the idea of interviewing Bobby walking through Wallace park, which is a really big public park in Lisburn. This works for us because it's easy to get to for all of our group members so there isn't any travel issues, but it's also really similar to the locations filmed in 'The Undateables', so it really will seem like a real documentary to the audience because it follows the same format that 'The Undateables' has.
Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Mockumentary Film Research
This year, my group and I must create a 5 minute short film. After lots of discussion, we've decided to go with the idea of shooting a mockumentary themed film. We've never shot a mockumentary before, or written the script for this type of film before so a lot of research will have to go into this project as we have practically no experience in this genre of film, bar watching these types of films. The best way for us to research this genre and really get to know it better is to watch a couple of short films, or films in general within the mockumentary genre, and analyse these films in terms of how they're shot, the editing of them, scripting, mise en scene, the target audience, the characters in the film and the social classes represented in these films. I'll also be researching the general codes and conventions of a mockumentary film, which will hopefully be portrayed through the films I'll be researching so I get a general idea of how we should shoot our film in order to apply the codes and conventions to it.
The short films I will be researching are:
The short films I will be researching are:
- Movie Mind Machine (12 mins)
- Strange Beasts (5 mins)
- The Purge: The Morning After (6 mins)
- In A Relationship (19 mins)
- Crack (12 mins)
The majority of these mockumentaries are classified as comical mockumentaries including; Movie Mind Machine, and The Purge: The Morning After, In A Relationship, and Crack. The reason I chose to analyse these films is because our final film will definitely fit into the comical mockumentary category, so these films will definitely help me to understand the way these types of films are shot and edited. I decided to also analyse a Sci-Fi mockumentary named Strange Beasts, simply so I could see how the codes and conventions of mockumentary films still apply to a more serious mockumentary based on a fictional topic.
Film Layout - First Draft.
January 23rd 2018
We've definitely settled on the idea of the short film being like an episode of 'The Undateables' but set for serial killers. Today, we figured out our beginning, middle and end for the film. It's not very detailed as we're still making slight changes, but this is roughly our overall plan for the film.
MIDDLE CHANGE TO KNIFE ON COUNTER
We've definitely settled on the idea of the short film being like an episode of 'The Undateables' but set for serial killers. Today, we figured out our beginning, middle and end for the film. It's not very detailed as we're still making slight changes, but this is roughly our overall plan for the film.
BEGINNING
- Voiceover narration over shots of everyday life
- Intro / small facts about love, statistics etc. This will be really similar, almost mimicking the narrative introductions from 'The Undateables' - "Looking for love can be difficult"
- Bobby saying their idea of what love is / their struggle with finding a partner. Bobby is speaking to camera, or someone behind the camera - giving the audience the feel of a real documentary.
- Preview of Bobby's everyday life - shots of him walking through a park as parts of his struggle are explained, as well as a narrator overvoicing. Shots of Bobby in his house, possibly showing the camera people his framed murder weapons, briefly explaining a bit of a few murders?
- Phone rings in Bobbys house
- Shot switches to office (shots of files and paperwork etc), receptionist talks to Bobby, switch between shots of him being told he has a date/ found a match for him etc. Brief introduction of who the date is.
- Just before date - shot of Poppy, small bio / interview of why she’s here and her struggle with finding a partner.
MIDDLE CHANGE TO KNIFE ON COUNTER
- Shot of Bobby sharpening blades in kitchen as the door knocks
- Poppy nervously stands at the door
- Quick glance of poison bottle (unknown to viewer what it is - foreshadows events)
- As Bobby walks to the door, he makes indirect comment /subtle hint about what is to come..something quite creepy or a pun about butchering someone.
- Door opens (match on action shot) - Bobby brings Poppy into main room - table set up for dinner
- Both sit at table - the two start to make small talk, and their voices slowly fade out and narrator leads, almost commentating the date
- Close up individual interviews about how nervous they are etc. ‘a stab at love’
- Bobby pours wine for both himself and Poppy.
- Bobby checks watch/time
- ‘Im going to get the starter’ - Bobby.
- As Bobby leaves the room, Poppy pours the mysterious poison into Bobbys wine.
- Bobby returns and they have a convo. In the middle of the convo, Poppy drinks her wine and gloats about how nice tasting it is, encouraging Bobby to drink some of his - Bobby makes a comment about how he doesn't drink until he has his meal. (use this as an opportunity to get to know characters & puns throughout their conversation)
- Finish convo with Poppy saying; ‘I’m going to go freshen up, can you show me bathroom?' or something along the lines of that.
- Bobby shows Poppy to the bathroom, she leaves the main room first, and there is a shot of Bobby picking up a sharpened knife from behind an item of furniture near the door. He holds it tightly behind his back
- Bobby and Poppy share small talk such as Bobby offering her directions like "just straight through here". Poppy then walks into the bathroom, and turns around to hint at Bobby that she's okay/close the door.
- Poppy's face changes to fear
- The shot reverses to a shot of Bobby with the axe about to kill Poppy.
- He whacks Poppy with the axe (this isn't shown, we just show the shot of Bobby forcefully throwing the axe down with his arms)
- We hear Poppy fall to the ground
- Shot of her body on the ground in a pool of blood
END
- Narration: ‘oh dear, the date has not gone to plan/taken an unexpected turn’ as camera zooms in on her dead body/drop camera
- Bobby drags her body into the kitchen
- Insert of recipe with pun (Bobby is planning to cook her)
- Jump to him sitting down to eat his meal
- Bobby sips his wine
- Bobby begins to choke, his face goes red and he falls from his chair.
- Bobby is dead.
Monday, 22 January 2018
Further Idea Development
January 22nd 2018
For the past two days, we've been discussing a possible timeline for the idea about a serial killer in a job centre. The progress was going well, we had just about decided on a beginning and a middle; the story was going in the direction of the job centre being for serial killers only, and it essentially surrounded trying to find new victims to serial killers who were struggling to find suitable victims. We wanted the entire set up to be really professional looking, as if it was a real job centre and completely serious to add to the sarcastic and comedic vibe of the film.
The storyline basically consisted of our main character who was a male serial killer going to the job centre to find new victims. There would be a waiting room where serial killers wait to be interviewed by the employees at the centre, where they would find some suitable victims for the killer, and in the waiting room there would be some well known killers such as Ted Bundy. Throughout all of this, we would be going back and forth between interview styled shots of the main character talking about why he is going to the job centre. The main part of the film would consist of the actual interview between the employee and the main character, and finding their suitable victim. This was all okay, but we really struggled to find a good ending. Of course, we wanted to make the ending include the actual murder, but we thought that the ending was pretty boring, predictable and didn't do much for the audience. There really was no way for us to make the ending entertaining, because there isn't much you can make exciting about a job centre. So, we tried to make the actual plot better so that we had more of an idea to build off of.
We started to think of shows like 'The Undateables' which have 2 people going on a blind date, so we thought we could film something like that but put our twist on it. So, essentially, we would have 2 serial killers who are trying to change their ways and find love; pretty much leaving their psychotic want to kill people behind and settle down with someone like regular people. However, of course it's not going to work out. We figured that this gives us a lot more of an interesting plot to base our ideas around, and lets our film timeline flow better. We have a rough idea of the beginning, middle and end but it isn't yet finalised, so I'll update about it in the next post.
For the past two days, we've been discussing a possible timeline for the idea about a serial killer in a job centre. The progress was going well, we had just about decided on a beginning and a middle; the story was going in the direction of the job centre being for serial killers only, and it essentially surrounded trying to find new victims to serial killers who were struggling to find suitable victims. We wanted the entire set up to be really professional looking, as if it was a real job centre and completely serious to add to the sarcastic and comedic vibe of the film.
The storyline basically consisted of our main character who was a male serial killer going to the job centre to find new victims. There would be a waiting room where serial killers wait to be interviewed by the employees at the centre, where they would find some suitable victims for the killer, and in the waiting room there would be some well known killers such as Ted Bundy. Throughout all of this, we would be going back and forth between interview styled shots of the main character talking about why he is going to the job centre. The main part of the film would consist of the actual interview between the employee and the main character, and finding their suitable victim. This was all okay, but we really struggled to find a good ending. Of course, we wanted to make the ending include the actual murder, but we thought that the ending was pretty boring, predictable and didn't do much for the audience. There really was no way for us to make the ending entertaining, because there isn't much you can make exciting about a job centre. So, we tried to make the actual plot better so that we had more of an idea to build off of.
We started to think of shows like 'The Undateables' which have 2 people going on a blind date, so we thought we could film something like that but put our twist on it. So, essentially, we would have 2 serial killers who are trying to change their ways and find love; pretty much leaving their psychotic want to kill people behind and settle down with someone like regular people. However, of course it's not going to work out. We figured that this gives us a lot more of an interesting plot to base our ideas around, and lets our film timeline flow better. We have a rough idea of the beginning, middle and end but it isn't yet finalised, so I'll update about it in the next post.
Friday, 19 January 2018
Idea Development
January 19th 2018
Mindhunter was our main source of inspiration throughout researching the Docu-Drama genre. We also did some research into other Docu-Dramas like 'Jeff' (The Jeffrey Dahmer Files) which is an experimental documentary basically explaining the story of Jeffrey Dahmer and his killings.
As keen as we were on the idea of a docu-drama, we decided that our recreation would be too similar to an episode of Mindhunter, and it just wasn't really as original as we wanted it to be. We aimed to have an idea that was different and interesting to the audience, so by going with this genre we would simply be regurgitating material that has already been done. This inspired us to look into other genres that still had the documentary sort of style to it, and that's when we came to the idea of a mockumentary.
We started researching mockumentaries such as 'The Office' and figured that this genre allowed us to still keep the interview set up, and also allowed us to keep the documentary style. However, this idea also lets us to create new material that hasn't been done many times before - how many times have you seen a mockumentary about serial killers? We tried to think of a couple of ideas that seemed quite funny to do in combination with serial killers, just to give us a ground to work on before we started researching the genre. We were thinking of ideas like job centres and employment, like a serial killer trying to get a job in a job centre - a basic idea but still comical. We started exploring this idea and planning out a couple scenarios - Would we incorporate more famous killers such as Ted Bundy? Would we have the serial killer going for a real job, or just another kill/victim? Is the job centre FOR serial killers, or is this just a serial killer in a normal job centre? All of these questions helped us to give us a ground idea, and we thought it was a really random and funny idea, and definitely possible for us to do.
Throughout the week we've been expanding on our film ideas. The serial killer idea definitely seems like its going to stay, however our main issue was figuring out which genre would suit us the best. Originally, we were thinking a drama (pretty much the same sort of style as 'Mindhunter'), so we did a bit of research into these type of shows. Dramatic-documentary was the path we were kind of edging towards.
Mindhunter was our main source of inspiration throughout researching the Docu-Drama genre. We also did some research into other Docu-Dramas like 'Jeff' (The Jeffrey Dahmer Files) which is an experimental documentary basically explaining the story of Jeffrey Dahmer and his killings.
As keen as we were on the idea of a docu-drama, we decided that our recreation would be too similar to an episode of Mindhunter, and it just wasn't really as original as we wanted it to be. We aimed to have an idea that was different and interesting to the audience, so by going with this genre we would simply be regurgitating material that has already been done. This inspired us to look into other genres that still had the documentary sort of style to it, and that's when we came to the idea of a mockumentary.
We started researching mockumentaries such as 'The Office' and figured that this genre allowed us to still keep the interview set up, and also allowed us to keep the documentary style. However, this idea also lets us to create new material that hasn't been done many times before - how many times have you seen a mockumentary about serial killers? We tried to think of a couple of ideas that seemed quite funny to do in combination with serial killers, just to give us a ground to work on before we started researching the genre. We were thinking of ideas like job centres and employment, like a serial killer trying to get a job in a job centre - a basic idea but still comical. We started exploring this idea and planning out a couple scenarios - Would we incorporate more famous killers such as Ted Bundy? Would we have the serial killer going for a real job, or just another kill/victim? Is the job centre FOR serial killers, or is this just a serial killer in a normal job centre? All of these questions helped us to give us a ground idea, and we thought it was a really random and funny idea, and definitely possible for us to do.
Monday, 15 January 2018
Film Ideas
January 15th 2018
This year for our Year 14 5 minute short film, my group and I have decided that we want to do something very different from what we had done last year. Last year, our film was a homosexual romance film which highlighted the difficulties of relationships - however, this year we want to completely switch it up and do something completely different from that. Originally, we wanted to film a 5 minute short on a really shocking and chilling idea, like a school shooting, and it seemed like a great idea but ultimately it would be really hard to sort out in terms of location and acting. It was definitely a big idea which would be difficult to portray in the space of 5 minutes, so we decided to look at other approaches for us to bring a twisted and chilling scenario into the film.
We're looking at lots of different stories to do with murder that we could incorporate into our film, to add a really shocking plot line. Serial killers seem to be the most common theme of a lot of the murder stories we've seen, which is making me more curious to look into different serial killers. We're currently looking at many high profile killers, such as Ted Bundy, The Zodiac Killer, Edmund Kemper and Harold Shipman. The stories are really fascinating and crazy to think about, so I really think they'd be interesting to incorporate into a film, or even make up our own serial killer and base it around that.
At the minute, we're bouncing around lots of ideas in terms of genre and plot line, so firstly we're trying to find a decent idea for us to go off of. I'm liking the idea of an interview style, serial killer documentary type of film - kind of like the Netflix Original 'Mindhunter'. It's a show basically surrounding 2 FBI agents who attempt to catch and understand serial killers by studying their damaged psyches. Along the way, the agents pioneer the development of modern serial-killer profiling. (Sidenote - Edmund Kemper [one of the serial killers we had researched] actually features in the show, obviously not the real Edmund Kemper, but his character is one of the serial killers who are investigated in the show!!) The show features a lot of scenes where the agents interview these high profile serial killers who are currently facing time in jail, and ask them lots of questions and eventually try to find common areas between the killers - such as how they were treated in their childhood etc.
I'm really fond of this idea, it's really interesting and I feel like it would really draw the audience in if we tried to recreate this type of idea - speaking from experience too as I was definitely hooked on the show 'Mindhunter' within one episode, so I'd say its a pretty interesting topic. Not to mention that lots of people seem to be instantly drawn to shows/documentaries/podcasts about serial killers because it really is so odd and something so many people can't understand, so naturally we're drawn to these type of topics because we want to understand how someone could do such a thing as killing other people so horrifically. I think it would be a really smart idea to take advantage of this curiosity within us and make our short film about that because it instantly catches the audience's attention because it's such a tabu subject.
We're more than likely going to stick with this topic idea but we're still exploring genres so there's still plenty more to think about regarding our plot.
This year for our Year 14 5 minute short film, my group and I have decided that we want to do something very different from what we had done last year. Last year, our film was a homosexual romance film which highlighted the difficulties of relationships - however, this year we want to completely switch it up and do something completely different from that. Originally, we wanted to film a 5 minute short on a really shocking and chilling idea, like a school shooting, and it seemed like a great idea but ultimately it would be really hard to sort out in terms of location and acting. It was definitely a big idea which would be difficult to portray in the space of 5 minutes, so we decided to look at other approaches for us to bring a twisted and chilling scenario into the film.
We're looking at lots of different stories to do with murder that we could incorporate into our film, to add a really shocking plot line. Serial killers seem to be the most common theme of a lot of the murder stories we've seen, which is making me more curious to look into different serial killers. We're currently looking at many high profile killers, such as Ted Bundy, The Zodiac Killer, Edmund Kemper and Harold Shipman. The stories are really fascinating and crazy to think about, so I really think they'd be interesting to incorporate into a film, or even make up our own serial killer and base it around that.
At the minute, we're bouncing around lots of ideas in terms of genre and plot line, so firstly we're trying to find a decent idea for us to go off of. I'm liking the idea of an interview style, serial killer documentary type of film - kind of like the Netflix Original 'Mindhunter'. It's a show basically surrounding 2 FBI agents who attempt to catch and understand serial killers by studying their damaged psyches. Along the way, the agents pioneer the development of modern serial-killer profiling. (Sidenote - Edmund Kemper [one of the serial killers we had researched] actually features in the show, obviously not the real Edmund Kemper, but his character is one of the serial killers who are investigated in the show!!) The show features a lot of scenes where the agents interview these high profile serial killers who are currently facing time in jail, and ask them lots of questions and eventually try to find common areas between the killers - such as how they were treated in their childhood etc.
We're more than likely going to stick with this topic idea but we're still exploring genres so there's still plenty more to think about regarding our plot.
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