Suggested exercises
The following exercises are intended to provide a basic framework for
exploring the distinctive nature of the mockumentary form - including
how mockumentary is positioned in relation to the documentary genre,
and especially the varieties of ways in which viewers read mockumentary
texts. (A printable download version is available in PDF
format.)
Any mockumentary can be analysed in terms of the reasons for its production, the ways in which it appropriates familiar codes and conventions of reality-based media (including documentary), and how audiences are encouraged to read it.
I. THE INTENTIONS OF THE MOCKUMENTARY FILMMAKER
- Compare mockumentary with April 1st news reports. Why are April Fools fake news stories produced, and how are they used in news bulletins? Are mockumentaries made for the same reasons?
- Compare mockumentary with news hoaxes. Is a journalist who deliberately fakes footage or information, then pretends that it is real, the same as a mockumentary filmmaker?
- Choose a mockumentary text, and make an assessment of the agendas
behind its production - what is the filmmaker trying to achieve in
using mockumentary?
- create a novelty or stunt event (e.g. the 1997
season premiere of television series ER staged a live television
event in the form of a mockumentary)
- create a parody or satire (e.g. This
is Spinal Tap uses mockumentary to mock the rise of 1980s heavy metal music, Forgotten
Silver plays with a number of New Zealand stereotypes and myths)
- use an innovative storytelling approach, often through mimicking
contemporary reality forms (e.g. The
Blair Witch Project combines documentary and video diary forms
to create a convincing horror story, Cloverfield
uses a similar device to revitalise a conventional science fiction
narrative, and Zero Day
pretends to be a video diary of two high school students planning
a Columbine-style massacre)
- offer a detailed critical commentary of a subject (e.g. the
satire of American conservatism represented through the main character
of Bob
Roberts, while Death
of a President critiques the foreign and domestic policy of
the George W. Bush administration)
- critique the documentary genre (e.g. Man
Bites Dog has a documentary crew which treats serial killing
as just another occupation)
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II. THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MOCKUMENTARY TEXT
Choose a mockumentary text (such as a feature film or television programme) and consider the following questions:
- How successful is your mockumentary in looking and sounding like a documentary (or reality-based media)? Could an audience easily mistake this fictional text for a documentary, or current affairs programme, or reality gameshow, or video diary…?
- What kinds of documentary (or other) codes and conventions does your mockumentary appropriate? How many of the following does it fake:
- on-screen presenter or voice-over narrator
- archival documents or photographs
- 'fly-on-the-wall' footage
- interviews with eyewitnesses
- interviews with experts
- video diary
- other codes and conventions?
- How are each of these (faked) codes and conventions used? What kinds
of information do they convey? How might the same information usually
be given to the audience in a fictional text?
- Forgotten Silver uses
black and white family photographs to give its main character, Colin
McKenzie, a credible personal history.
- The
Blair Witch Project features interviews with residents of a small
town to suggest a local history of witchcraft.
- Brass Eye takes the familiar
conventions of television news and uses them to present a caricature
of news production itself.
- Are there any aspects of your mockumentary that are real? (And how can you tell?)
- Consider whether there are any overlaps between mockumentary and documentary. Is a documentary that uses humour the same as a mockumentary?
Where would we place a feature film such as Borat:
Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of
Kazakhstan which has a fictional documentary filmmaker staging
encounters with real people?
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