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| Operation Good Guys Series 1, 2 & 3 |
A mockumentary is a documentary style comedy about something in real life / a real life issue. Operation Good Guys works well as a mockumentary because it can be said to documents the truth of a workplace, but then has the comedic side to it. Similarly to what I talked about during my research into The Office. This is interesting to see a show which portrays a career as serious as a police force in a humorous light. Throughout the three series, we see the professional and the personal breakdown of the police unit, from being conned by their accountant, getting sacked by the police, getting retrained, being banned from the BBC to insulting the Royal Family.
Producers:
- Ray Burdis
- Dominic Anciano
- Hugo Blick
Casting
Casting is a big part of the producers job role. Particularly in a mockumentary, the comedy comes from the cast and how good they are as actors. As we are creating a comedy, it is my job to make sure the cast we choose can translate the script well for the audience. This will come from inviting potential cast members to auditions with Alex, Katie and myself, then we can make a decision as to who would work best in our film.
(British Comedy Guide, n/d)
DI Jim Beach has spent more than twenty years in the police force and has progressed through the ranks to become the Detective Inspector. In 1997 he was assigned to head up Operation Good Guys with orders to bring down the empire of major villain Hugo "Smiler" McCarthy. The Commissioner would in time come to regret this decision as Beach managed, with the help of an inept group of officers, to make a complete hash of the entire Operation.
DS Raymond Ash has been DI Beach's right hand man for many years, and the two have become good friends as a result. The relationship between Ray and Beach is almost like dog and master, Beach is constantly brushing Ray aside and calling him a idiot, but Ray remains very fond of his boss and will always be there to back him up when needed.
During his time with the Good Guys, Ray has managed to run a woman over, arrest an England footballer, have a panic attack in the boot of a car during an observation exercise, get attacked by one of Smiler McCarthy's dogs, and have a close encounter with a randy pig, to name but a few.
Sgt Dominic de Sade joined the police fresh from the Royal Marines, making him the perfect man for the Armed Response Unit of the force. De Sade is a reasonably competent officer although he has a somewhat laid back attitude, which Beach finds very irritating. When the BBC arrives to cover Operation Good Guys, de Sade is very secretive about his home life as it later transpires that he and his missus rather enjoy kinky sex games with leather and whips and all the rest of it. Although he is a policeman, this doesn't stop de Sade from stripping the commissioner's house of anything he can flog such as copper piping, radiators and even the front door.
Mark Kemp's first assignment was Operation Good Guys, he proved to be something of a liability to the team. He messed up two drugs exchanges almost as soon as he arrived, and he was also unable to get any information from an informant, as he didn't know how to speak cryptically.
His biggest blunder however was when he and Bones incinerated his uncle's dog, Sherlock. This turned out to be the last straw for the commissioner and he cancelled the operation. Mark was soon back at Hendon barely a year after he'd left the first time. Being the commissioner's nephew worked in his favour though as he was made the instructor's assistant, a position he soon lost when he broke curfew. Mark was then sent with the Good Guys to Spain for Operation Zorro, however there was trouble before he'd even left England. He was supposed to take his uncle's golf clubs to his villa but he left them unattended at the airport and they were blown up. More trouble came when he told Bones it was okay to go nude in Spain and the two of them got arrested for indecent exposure.
Bones's nickname "Bones" seems ironic because Bones is actually a short, fat man with a very fiery temper on him. Bones sees himself as the Robert DeNero of policing, a method policeman, rather than a method actor. Unfortunately, Bones had a disturbed childhood and he suffered trauma at an early age when he lost a testicle, which he still carries round preserved in a jar.
Bones claimed to have many years experience in setting up drugs exchanges but he never really had the chance to show this as the three drugs exchanges he set up were ruined, one by Ray and the other two by Mark Kemp. Bones was ultimately responsible, along with Mark, for Operation Good Guys losing their funding when they ended up killing the Commissioner's dog (who they were training). Bones, along with the others, was sent back to Hendon for re-training, he was then sent to Spain for Operation Zorro but he almost didn't get to participate as he and Mark were arrested the day before for indecent exposure on the beach. Following their time in Spain, Bones carried on working under DI Beach despite the number of times the governor had "let them down", in his opinion. When not working, Bones enjoys making homemade butter (which once gave him a severe attack of the runs) and vigilante crime fighting (which he was doing at the time of the butter attack and unfortunately there was no toilet).
Strings and Bones have always clashed and have nearly come to blows on more than one occasion. Although Strings thinks he's a musical genius, not everyone appreciates his art. Bones has been known to take exception to Strings playing his guitar on duty and his neighbours once got him charged for disturbing the peace. Then, Strings was sent back to Hendon and demoted to uniform in Series 3 which meant he had to cut his long hair... but he is still rock and roll through and through, despite the new image.
DI Jim Beach has spent more than twenty years in the police force and has progressed through the ranks to become the Detective Inspector. In 1997 he was assigned to head up Operation Good Guys with orders to bring down the empire of major villain Hugo "Smiler" McCarthy. The Commissioner would in time come to regret this decision as Beach managed, with the help of an inept group of officers, to make a complete hash of the entire Operation.
DS Raymond Ash has been DI Beach's right hand man for many years, and the two have become good friends as a result. The relationship between Ray and Beach is almost like dog and master, Beach is constantly brushing Ray aside and calling him a idiot, but Ray remains very fond of his boss and will always be there to back him up when needed.
During his time with the Good Guys, Ray has managed to run a woman over, arrest an England footballer, have a panic attack in the boot of a car during an observation exercise, get attacked by one of Smiler McCarthy's dogs, and have a close encounter with a randy pig, to name but a few.
Sgt Dominic de Sade joined the police fresh from the Royal Marines, making him the perfect man for the Armed Response Unit of the force. De Sade is a reasonably competent officer although he has a somewhat laid back attitude, which Beach finds very irritating. When the BBC arrives to cover Operation Good Guys, de Sade is very secretive about his home life as it later transpires that he and his missus rather enjoy kinky sex games with leather and whips and all the rest of it. Although he is a policeman, this doesn't stop de Sade from stripping the commissioner's house of anything he can flog such as copper piping, radiators and even the front door.
Mark Kemp's first assignment was Operation Good Guys, he proved to be something of a liability to the team. He messed up two drugs exchanges almost as soon as he arrived, and he was also unable to get any information from an informant, as he didn't know how to speak cryptically.
His biggest blunder however was when he and Bones incinerated his uncle's dog, Sherlock. This turned out to be the last straw for the commissioner and he cancelled the operation. Mark was soon back at Hendon barely a year after he'd left the first time. Being the commissioner's nephew worked in his favour though as he was made the instructor's assistant, a position he soon lost when he broke curfew. Mark was then sent with the Good Guys to Spain for Operation Zorro, however there was trouble before he'd even left England. He was supposed to take his uncle's golf clubs to his villa but he left them unattended at the airport and they were blown up. More trouble came when he told Bones it was okay to go nude in Spain and the two of them got arrested for indecent exposure.
Bones's nickname "Bones" seems ironic because Bones is actually a short, fat man with a very fiery temper on him. Bones sees himself as the Robert DeNero of policing, a method policeman, rather than a method actor. Unfortunately, Bones had a disturbed childhood and he suffered trauma at an early age when he lost a testicle, which he still carries round preserved in a jar.
Bones claimed to have many years experience in setting up drugs exchanges but he never really had the chance to show this as the three drugs exchanges he set up were ruined, one by Ray and the other two by Mark Kemp. Bones was ultimately responsible, along with Mark, for Operation Good Guys losing their funding when they ended up killing the Commissioner's dog (who they were training). Bones, along with the others, was sent back to Hendon for re-training, he was then sent to Spain for Operation Zorro but he almost didn't get to participate as he and Mark were arrested the day before for indecent exposure on the beach. Following their time in Spain, Bones carried on working under DI Beach despite the number of times the governor had "let them down", in his opinion. When not working, Bones enjoys making homemade butter (which once gave him a severe attack of the runs) and vigilante crime fighting (which he was doing at the time of the butter attack and unfortunately there was no toilet).
Strings and Bones have always clashed and have nearly come to blows on more than one occasion. Although Strings thinks he's a musical genius, not everyone appreciates his art. Bones has been known to take exception to Strings playing his guitar on duty and his neighbours once got him charged for disturbing the peace. Then, Strings was sent back to Hendon and demoted to uniform in Series 3 which meant he had to cut his long hair... but he is still rock and roll through and through, despite the new image.
My thoughts:
- These characters have all made mistakes throughout the show. Their mistakes as police officers is what makes the show funny. The actors would have played a big part in helping the comedy come across from the script to the audience. To start the casting process to get these exact characters, the director would have created the character profiles. These would then have been set out with the advert about the show in order to get actors attention. Once actors have applied for the show, they would have had to go through auditions to narrow down the candidates for the specific roles.
- During the audition, the producer and director would have needed to look for the different personalities for the specific characters and decided who was able to portray them the best. In order to make a realistic film, the cast members need to be suited to their specific roles. Each character listed above has a different personality, and in order to make Operation Good Guys a success the casting team would allocate each character to the best cast members at the audition.
- In the Transitions unit, we didn't look around for actors. We used people we knew, this was mainly down to the lack of time we gave to this unit while we had others to complete. However, in this unit we have 4 months purely for the pre-production of our film, with this duration we have plenty of time to put out adverts, look around for cast, and set up auditions. Therefore, we should be able to get good actors who are used to working on a comedy.
- Each character in Operation Good Guys is important to the story, otherwise they wouldn't be a character. I will remember this when we are casting. Even if we are casting for a role with minimal dialogue, they are still a valuable character to the story and I will give the candidate the same amount of time to portray the role as I will for the candidates who have applied for the main characters.
- You would think that with the show being about a police force that the cast would be good at playing policemen, but as the show is about the opposite it's interesting to see how little they know about the police instead. This is in the importance of advertising the role correctly and getting the idea of the story across at the beginning of the casting process. If someone read it thinking it was about a serious police force and applied for the role and then found out it was a comedy about the police, then they would have wasted time auditioning someone who wouldn't have been good for the part to start with. As a result of this, when I am creating the casting advert I will be sure to explain that our film is a sitcom and experience in comedy will be required in order to get the most appropriate people to apply for VET-MAN.
- These characters have all made mistakes throughout the show. Their mistakes as police officers is what makes the show funny. The actors would have played a big part in helping the comedy come across from the script to the audience. To start the casting process to get these exact characters, the director would have created the character profiles. These would then have been set out with the advert about the show in order to get actors attention. Once actors have applied for the show, they would have had to go through auditions to narrow down the candidates for the specific roles.
- During the audition, the producer and director would have needed to look for the different personalities for the specific characters and decided who was able to portray them the best. In order to make a realistic film, the cast members need to be suited to their specific roles. Each character listed above has a different personality, and in order to make Operation Good Guys a success the casting team would allocate each character to the best cast members at the audition.
- In the Transitions unit, we didn't look around for actors. We used people we knew, this was mainly down to the lack of time we gave to this unit while we had others to complete. However, in this unit we have 4 months purely for the pre-production of our film, with this duration we have plenty of time to put out adverts, look around for cast, and set up auditions. Therefore, we should be able to get good actors who are used to working on a comedy.
- Each character in Operation Good Guys is important to the story, otherwise they wouldn't be a character. I will remember this when we are casting. Even if we are casting for a role with minimal dialogue, they are still a valuable character to the story and I will give the candidate the same amount of time to portray the role as I will for the candidates who have applied for the main characters.
- You would think that with the show being about a police force that the cast would be good at playing policemen, but as the show is about the opposite it's interesting to see how little they know about the police instead. This is in the importance of advertising the role correctly and getting the idea of the story across at the beginning of the casting process. If someone read it thinking it was about a serious police force and applied for the role and then found out it was a comedy about the police, then they would have wasted time auditioning someone who wouldn't have been good for the part to start with. As a result of this, when I am creating the casting advert I will be sure to explain that our film is a sitcom and experience in comedy will be required in order to get the most appropriate people to apply for VET-MAN.
References:
- British Comedy Guide. (n/d). Operation Good Guys. Available: https://www.comedy.co.uk/about/. Last accessed 18th Sept 2018.
- Sanctis, G. (n/d). Operation Good Guys – A Gem of A British Comedy.Available: http://zani.co.uk/film-tv/item/2768-operation-good-guys-a-gem-of-a-british-comedy. Last accessed 27th Sept 2018.
- Sanctis, G. (n/d). Operation Good Guys – A Gem of A British Comedy.Available: http://zani.co.uk/film-tv/item/2768-operation-good-guys-a-gem-of-a-british-comedy. Last accessed 27th Sept 2018.
Images:
- https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/operation_good_guys/
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