Genre and Conventions for my Short Film
For my short film I have decided to do a Mock Documentary (or Mockumentary) this genre follows conventions similar to a typical documentary, however Mockumentaries follow a similar theme throughout.
One of the main conventions from Mockumentaries is that they tend to be presented as historical documents or in a foreign location as opposed to being about current affairs or familiar places. This is seen is This Is Spinal Tap where Rob Reiner tells his time of when he was following Spinal Tap’s release of a new album and US Tour and also in the Panorama April Fool’s joke for the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest.
Mockumentaries often tend to be ad libbed and improvised, however for the sake of my work, I shall not be taking this approach, but to try and keep it looking realistic I shall try and stick to using themes and short lines with improvised lines. They also tend to use a vast amount of B-Roll, showing footage from fictional events, and sometimes factual events in order to back up the stories told in the interviews.
Previous Mockumentaries from Sacha Baron Cohen such as Borat and Bruno have followed a mix of acting and actually interacting with the public for the sake of humour and even gone as far as getting arrested and indecent exposure.
The horror based mock documentary The Blair Witch Project had the actors placed in situations of starvation and trauma, this was done by having the food rationed and the film crew and directors harassing them during the night and moving them to far locations during the day.
As the Mock Documentary genre is formulated from the Documentary genre it is necessary to look at Documentary conventions too, documentaries present actual incidents and statements which can be tested against reality, this means that the characters presented in a Documentary portray the reality that they represent. Documentaries are often based on current affairs and news. Documentaries are rarely intended for entertainment purposes but rather to inform and educate their audience. Documentaries are often told from a biased perspective, often focussing on one side of an argument and are frequently injected with the director’s beliefs but are presented in a neutral way. Some documentaries maintain neutrality and tell both sides of an argument, these documentaries are often based on historical events such as World War 2.
Documentary filming styles are often incorporated into the Mock Documentary; this includes styles such as “Fly on the wall” filming where a camera is left in a place for an extended period of time in order to gather footage of events happening naturally as they occur. B-Roll is also traditionally used as mentioned previously; this footage is traditionally recorded for another purpose but is often beneficial for the documentary. Voice Overs are often an important aspect to documentaries, they frequently tell the story about what is currently happening in the documentary, and explain certain situations and events, often from the narrator’s perspective.
Written text and graphics are also commonly used in documentaries, the text is often to introduce the ‘expert’ or the person being interviewed, it can also be used to show a statement given often with a voice over reading the text. Graphics are often used, they usually involve Photographs, Newspaper articles and sometimes even diagrams, this is to make the information being delivered easier to digest and understand.
A tactic that is frequently employed in documentaries is the use of visible recording and disruption, often the camera is seen in the documentary this is to try and make the events seem more realistic, however these events can often be premeditated to have that effect. Disruptions are often shown, such as a hand covering the camera to show the reason a cameraman stops filming; this can also be used to backup an argument, by showing that a company or person is being secretive and doesn’t want the public to know what is happening behind closed doors.
Since documentaries are based on excessive research and time consumption, interviews are the best example of this, interviews are an outsider from the film production team who give interviews in order to back up an argument or topic, this can be a regular person to a highly regarded expert, these often have things in the background in order to reflect this, such as houses in the background or a city centre for a normal everyday person. Experts are the most common people used in documentary interviews; these are often people who hold status and authority in the field of which the documentary is based. Regular people are also often used in interviews these interviews are often recorded in the streets as people are walking by, these are called Vox Pops and are most commonly used in the news in order to get their opinions on things, they’re most often used in the local news so that the audience can relate to the people interviewed. Interviews are the most common point of using B-Roll in order to cover up the points of editing and make the interview flow continuously without gaps.
Sometimes music is used to speak for the film, similar to how a film uses music, the music in a documentary is used to set the tone of the documentary, example being that serious documentaries open up with sombre dramatic music, this is used to establish the atmosphere for the rest of the documentary.
These conventions are used equally as much in documentaries as they are in mock documentaries, this is mainly to try and increase the authenticity of the mock documentary, this has been successful in the past to the point of confusion, this is best seen in the 1938 airing of The War Of The Worlds on the Radio, since the first hour was presented as News Bulletins, people became genuinely frightened.
