The creative process wasn’t quite as time-consuming as I had originally predicted in terms of planning, shooting and editing. In total it took around three weeks to get from shot lists to a finished product, which was helped greatly by my surprisingly reliable mocumentary cast (or actor).
I shot the film on a standard Sony handy cam and uploaded the raw footage onto an Apple Mac which allowed me to use great software programs such as iMovie, Final Cut Express, GarageBand and LiveType to edit and create my final product. I would say that due to spending quite a lot of condensed time using these programs it allowed me to become quite competent at using them which in turn allowed me to be more creative as I had the knowledge of how to use more complex or advanced effects or gadgets that the programs had to offer, for example, split screening in Final Cut or manipulating the titles in LiveType.
In terms of creative boundaries of a mocumentary, it would be fair to say that there weren’t many things that I couldn’t do due the medium. Therefore this allowed me to be quite creative by mixing up a usual documentary style edit and throwing in sections such as the ‘Rocky montage’ which in some ways is similar to a music video or cinematic montage.
This is something that attracted me to creating a mocumentary as I loved the idea that you can do unusual things and arguably this sub-genre is still relatively new so there are not many ‘rules’ or genre conventions that you HAVE to stick to. Moreover I have always wanted to produce something that mocks the mind numbing and relentless reality television shows that have infested the airwaves for the past few years.
Sound is something that was either going to make or ruin my product as documentaries rely heavily on interesting dialogue involving the characters/people and voiceovers to narrate what is going on or to tell the story, therefore this was something that I worked hard with to make sure that there were no gaps of inappropriate silence (or similarly no moments of inappropriate dialogue, which was similar to the visuals) and that the sound related closely to the visuals and pushed the edit along swiftly to keep the audience interested. Mise-en-scene for my production was really quite simple, it involved a few trademark items for my actor such as the wig and glasses (and tracksuit for the training scenes), and as for the settings, because it is a sub-genre of documentary all of these were natural, except for a small number of set-ups such as sweet wrappers in his bedroom for example.
The most difficult scenes to shoot were in KFC due to a momentary lack of confidence from my actor as well as making sure that we didn’t offend the public or staff and get thrown out because of the guerilla style filming.
Editing was more complex than I had originally expected because of the many layers of sound that I had to edit as well as putting together the ‘Rocky montage’ which took a very large amount of cuts and careful editing to time it correctly. Other than that it was reasonably easy due to the synergy of the programs featured on the Mac’s allowing automatic compatibility of files between them.
The main narrative of the film was originally to follow an overweight individual as he changed his life and the story changed over six times before I finally decided on the plot. The film is designed to mock or parody popular television shows such as ‘My Big Fat Gypsy wedding’, ‘The Biggest loser’ and ‘Supersize Me’ (plus many more) but is compressed down like a ‘three minute wonder’ style edit rather than a full length episode.
There are many more shots that I captured during the production stages that didn’t make it into the final edit as these were either irrelevant to the final plot and had to be discarded to speed the narrative along or were simply funny at the time of shooting but just too stupid to put in the final cut. An example of this would be some shots I have of my main character ‘learning’ to ride his bike which was originally going to be placed close to the end of the montage where he falls off a lot in a variety of spectacular ways. However, as I said these shots were just too dumb for the final cut.
I first showed my original cut to a handful of people who gave me some useful feedback and constructive criticism which definitely helped me to produce a more effective final cut, of which I have now shown to around 20 different individuals and they all seemed to enjoy it, some laughing out loud more than others therefore it is fair to say it had a mixed reception overall. However, even a few people laughing means that I have achieved the aims that I set in the first place. I think that some of the reason for its relative success is because people can relate to the topics addressed in my production and because of the obviousness in the way that I am addressing these topics it’s very difficult to miss a gag or joke.
Personally I’m very pleased with my mocumentary as I have achieved everything that I set out to, I learnt a lot of skills along the way and generally had a good time producing it. One of the things I am most pleased with for my film is the way I actually got a physical and positive audience response through laughter which is something that I have wanted from the start, or even to get the audience to respond in any way whatsoever.
J.
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