TRANSITION: Research into the Mockumentary Genre & Editing

A mockumentary is essentially a 'fake documentary'. A comedic documentary about current events and issues, usually in a fictional setting. A mockumentary is "a film that has the look and feel of a television documentary, but with the irreverent humour and slapstick of a comedy, designed to 'mock' the documentary or subject it features". (Garner, 2003)

This is Spinal Tap (1984) is an American rock music mockumentary, directed and co-written by Rob Reiner. Spinal Tap was one of the first mockumentaries and was very well-known, it helped popularise the mockumentary genre.

Brief overview of Spinal Tap:

When Guns ‘n’ Roses took the stage in Melbourne this February, announcer ‘McBob’ made a fatal error – throatily screaming out “Sydney” – which was met by vehement booing from the audience. Not an ideal way to begin the concert, especially when the band was already an hour late.

Early morning the following day, Slash apologised in a tweet saying: “Melbourne, thank you for an awesome fucking evening! Apologies for the Spinal Tap intro!”

The moment was indeed reminiscent of the accident-prone, idiotically unaware, and foolishly incompetent fictional band Spinal Tap. In particular, it was a moment where reality and the mockumentary film coalesced into something wonderful and absurd. (Bugeja, n.d)
The film showcases the wild personal behaviour and musical pretensions of hard rock and heavy metal bands, with a relation to rock documentaries at the time. There are three main members of Spinal Tap, they play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the movie.

Rob Reiner modeled this film on serious documentaries such as the Maysles Brothers' Gimme Shelter (1970). The film also shows the influence of Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same (1976) and The Bands The Last waltz (1978). Reiner and the three main characters are credited as the writers because they ad-libbed so much of the dialogue, creating several hours of footage. 

Actors were given outlines indicating where scenes would begin and end and character information necessary to avoid contradictions, but everything else came from the actors. Very often, the first take was used in the film to capture natural reactions, because these couldn't be repeated as well as the initial reactions.

During the post production stage, Christopher Guest (band member Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap) was very concerned with the continuity of the finger positions on the band's instruments during the concert scenes, and even re-shot some footage after the movie was edited to ensure their hands were in sync with the music. 

In 2011, Time Out London named This is Spinal Tap the Best Comedy of All Time, noting that “It’s sublimely funny and sharp—a comedy built for the long haul which matures with each viewing.” (Wood, 2014)


Come Fly With Me (2010) is a more recent mockumentary from the Little Britain team. The series parodies the various types of characters you might find at an airport / during a flight, including flight and ground staff from regular to low budget airlines, as well as officials from customs and immigration, and some interesting passengers up to no good.

Come Fly With Me is a spoof of the British documentaries Airport and Airline, the series follows the activity at London Stansted Airport and three fictional airlines, FlyLo (a low-cost airline), Our Lady Air (an Irish low-cost airline) and Great British Air (a major international British airline). Starring David Walliams and Matt Lucas who play most of the airline staff and customers, the film is filmed as a 'fly on the wall' documentary. 

Editing techniques:
I have seen Come Fly With Me when it aired in 2010 but I re-watched some episodes to get an idea of their editing techniques.

- Slower cutting - holding the camera shots on the comedy and then hold reaction shots
- Regular interviews with the employees and passengers
- Shot with very little cameras, mainly handheld. Some short scenes are shot on just the one camera, only cut to another one if needed (e.g. actor moves)

Come Fly With Me was the second highest performing show over the Christmas holiday period in 2010 with 12.4 million / 43.2 percent - the highest comedy launch on BBC One.


The Office (2001) is a British mockumentary sitcom created, written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. The programme is about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Slough branch of the fictitious Wernham Hogg Paper Company. Ricky Gervais also stars in the series, playing the main character, David Brent. 

When it was first shown on BBC Two, it was nearly cancelled due to low ratings, but it has since become one of the most successful of all British comedy exports.

The show centres on themes of social clumsiness, the trivialities of human behaviour, self importance and conceit, frustration, desperation and fame. 

Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were a comedy double act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema. Stan Laurel was the English 'thin man' and Oliver Hardy was the American 'fat man'. They became well known during the late 1920s through the mid 1940s for their slapstick comedy, with Laurel playing the clumsy and childlike friend of the proud bully Hardy. 

Sometimes, their comedy bordered on the surreal, in a style that Stan Laurel called 'white magic'. E.g. in the 1937 film Way Out West, Laurel clenches his fist and pours tobacco into it as if it were a pipe. He then flicks his thumb upward as if working a lighter. His thumb ignites and he lights his 'pipe'. The amazed Hardy, seeing this, would unsuccessfully attempt to repeat this trick throughout the film. He finally succeeds, only to be terrified when his thumb actually catches fire. Laurel repeats the pipe trick in the 1938 film Block-Heads, again to Hardy's bemusement. The jokes ends this time with a match Laurel was using, relighting itself, which Hardy then throws in the fireplace, where it explodes with a loud bang.

Instead of seeing Hardy suffering the pain of a disaster, such as falling down the stairs or being beaten up, banging and crashing sound effects were often used so the audience could visualise the scene for themselves.

Hardy has two trademarks during his films, the first being his 'tie-twiddle' when he is embarrassed and the second being his 'camera look' where he breaks the fourth wall. The fourth wall is when an actor breaks that imaginary wall between them and the audience by looking at the camera and addressing the audience. Hardy uses this when he has to feel exasperated, so he just looks straight at the camera and shows his disgust. 

The idea of breaking the fourth wall is usually seen on mockumentary sitcoms, including The Office. Mockumentaries which break the fourth wall mock the documentary genre with the intention of increasing the sarcastic / mocking tone of the show. Characters in The Office directly speak to the audience during interview sequences. These characters are removed from the rest of the group to reflect of their own experiences - this is a standard documentary technique where we break up the actuality with related interviews with the specific characters. The person behind the camera becomes the interviewer but stays silent, the answers are supposed to answer the questions without having to hear the questions. This technique can help heighten the comic tone of shows.


Cunk On Britain (2018) is a spin off show from Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe. It is about an investigative reporter called Philomena Cunk, traveling through British history. She asks professional real people questions about their speciality in order to learn about Britain. 

Cunk On started with a special episode about Shakespeare. When this was successful they created Cunk On Britain. 

Unlike Come Fly With Me and The Office where everyone involved is an actor and know whats going on, in Cunk On Philomena Cunk interviews real people who aren't actors. This is a good way to get peoples real reactions, because they aren't in on the show. It's Philomena's interviewing style which brings the humour for the show. She throws questions that make no sense at experts, particularly British history academics. Their politeness and patience adds to the ridiculousness of the show. 

The main editing technique in this show is the reaction shots of the experts which maintain the humour, as well as Philomena's questioning. The editor holds the shots of Philomena when she's asking a question. This shows the interest and seriousness in her face about her own question. Then they cut to the expert's confused face and they attempt to answer the question. 


Tips for making mockumentaries (Maher, 2015)
Even though I am the editor of this project I looked into ways to create mockumentaries so I can have some input into the production side of the film. 

- Find an odd subject
Mockumentaries are fun and can be made from any subject so the weirder the better the funnier.

- Don't use more than two cameras 
One camera will work but two will allow the editor to cut to and from dull parts in the film. Also, if an improv scene drags on, I can cut to a reaction shot or another angle to remove any unnecessary dialogue. More than two cameras can ruin the feel of the film. Alex and Katie both have DSLR's so we will be able to set up two cameras, one for the main character and one for reaction shots in the conversation scenes. 

- Handheld or shaky footage is fine
A mockumentary keeps the feel of a standard documentary, in which the DoP is normally using an over-the-shoulder camera to follow the subject. Alex has a shoulder rig so we should be able to get the appropriate over-the-shoulder documentary shots.

- Using natural or minimal lighting
We want a traditional feel to the shots, nothing too perfect with the lighting, therefore minimal lighting is best. We will look for a location with a lot of natural lighting so we shouldn't need to work too much on the lighting, but Katie has some soft boxes we can use if we need them.

- Improvise
Improvisation is a good way to get comedy as the character may think of something funny while repeating the script. Depending on who we cast, we may say that can improvise if they're experienced and comfortable in doing that.

- Interview real people and not actors
We already have an idea to do a version of Cunk On. In this, Philimena Cunk interviews real people and their reactions are where the humour comes from. We will attempt to talk to real people who specialise in the subject matter we choose. This will also work well with Spinal Tap's method of using the first take to get the natural reactions. We shall work with the actor who is chosen to be our presenter so they are ready and hopefully we'll be able to get a good shot first time with the real interviewees. 


What have I learnt?

- It was very useful finding tips on how to shoot mockumentaries because I now know the basic traditional ways in which a mockumentary is created. This will help us in the pre-production and production stages. 

- I was finding similarities by looking at different mockumentaries and comedic actors because they're the same genre, such as the fact that one of Laurel and Hardy's techniques to break the fourth wall is featured in The Office. 

- It was interesting to find that ad-libbing was common amongst mockumentaries. This may work if we cast someone who is able to do this well.

- 'Fly-on-the-wall' filming technique is very popular within the production of mockumentaries, we have already spoke about this and have agreed we want our film to have this feel to it.

- Everything I have research and watched have held reaction shots to maintain the comedy. I've found that this is an essential editing technique for comedy and will be using it during the edit of our film. I will ensure Katie remembers to film reaction shots and hold them for me to edit with. 

References:
- Garner, W. (2003). mockumentary. Available: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mockumentary. Last accessed 22nd March 2018.

- Bugeja, N. (n/d). This is Spinal Tap: a seminal staple of the mockumentary. Available: https://www.acmi.net.au/ideas/read/spinal-tap-seminal-staple-mockumentary/. Last accessed 22nd March 2018.

- Wood, J. (2014). 15 Things You Might Not Know About This Is Spinal Tap. Available: http://mentalfloss.com/article/55369/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-spinal-tap. Last accessed 22nd March 2018.

- Maher, M. (2015). 11 Tips for Making a Mockumentary. Available: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/11-tips-making-mockumentary/. Last accessed 22nd March 2018.

Images:

- http://teachingmedialiteracy.pbworks.com/w/page/19924138/FilmTelevisionGenres

- http://questionsofdifference.com/come-fly-2/

- https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/laurel-and-hardy-a-nice-mess-of-laughter-thats-lasted-for-90-years/

- http://www.nme.com/blogs/tv-blogs/philomena-cunk-diane-morgan-talks-cunk-britain-2280053