Title Sequence Research

We felt that as we are doing an opening sequence and mockumentaries traditionally don't allow you to include credits that we would do a title sequence for the talent show. We thought as a mockumentary must have comedy we would parody the 1950's style of advertising to do this. 

Shot List

Shot 1
Long Shot of Rockabilly dancing
Black & White


Shot 2
Medium shot of someone singing


Shot 3
Medium shot of someone juggling 


Shot 4
Medium shot of someone putting their fist in their mouth


Shot 5
Text : TALENT SHOW


Shot 6
LONG SHOT of Sarah Middleston as she walks around the corner and towards the camera.

Shot 7

(Shot-reverse-shot) Sarah Middlestone walking away from the camera pinning a Talent Show Poster to wall

Tracking Shot. Interview with Sarah about Talent Show

Close Up Shots (From shoulders)

Shot 8
MID-SHOT of Constance and her friend looking back and forth between the two as they shout out emotions and Constance does the same facial expression as a response each time. 


Shot 9
Mid - Close-up Shot Constance Woods is now doing an interview for the camera.

Shot 10
Long Shot of Constance trying to get her leg up on a bar. 


Shot 11
Long Shot of a classroom through the glass, focus on Constance then over to the teacher and then come out to see them both.


Shot 12
Mid-Shot of Constance back in her interview.


Shot 13
Long Shot of Isabella dancing. 


Shot 14
Close-Up Shot of Constance


Shot 15
Long, Two Person Shot of Isabella and Constance dancing. 

Marketing Plan

Because our target audience are of the ages 15-24 we wish to advertise through technologies that are trending in this decade. For instance: Social networking sites, according to recent surveys, in 2010 social networking sites make up 11% of peoples time on the internet, and increasing. Therefore by advertising via Facebook, Myspace and Twitter networks, our target audience will be more informed of our movie. We think that if we were to create an interactive advertisement, it would be more stimulating for them, and may influence other audiences. Another website which is frequently used for advertising is You Tube. According to surveys, the base age demographic for You Tube is 18-54. Perhaps our movie may appeal to wider audiences due to this.

"Talent Show" Treatment

Past (roughly 1950)
Various.
Unknown


Three students practice for the Talent Show in various places around college as the voice comes on.


Voice over man Weston College is holding their annual Talent Show. The show has been going since 1947 and is still going strong. This is a chance for many bright young students to show off their diverse talents, to claim their way to fame, and to travel the globe. 




The Present.
College.
Hallway.
Midday.


Sarah Middleston, a creative arts student walks up to a billboard in the hallway and pins up a poster for a Talent Show. As she does an interview for film crew.


Sarah Middleston (responding to the question "Is the talent show popular with students around the campus?" - Audience can't hear question being asked)


Yeah, all the students take the show very seriously. There are some really talented people, there's this one girl who really goes all out every year. 


College.
Rehearsal Hall. 
Midday.


Constance Wood is now having her own interview with the film crew. As we see people in the background rehearsing their own acts.


Constance Wood (responding to the question "What is your talent for the show?" - Audience can't hear the question being asked)


Dancing, dancing's my life. It's what I do, I practice all day and all night. My parent's tell me I'll never be able to make it and to focus on school, but I know that dancing is my ticket to fame. 


The Present.
College.
Classroom.
Midday.


CUT TO classroom (sound bridge of response to question)LONG SHOT through classroom window. Constance Wood is sat at the back of a classroom dancing to herself. Teacher points at Constance. Constance notices camera and looks uneased 

Constance Wood (responding to the question "Who's your main competition?" - Audience can't hear the question being asked)


My competition? Well I would say myself but I guess it would be Isabella Star, we've been in competition ever since our first nativity play. I got chosen for the role of the donkey, she got Mary but everybody knows she was trying to steal my part...


CLOSE UP on Constance looking uncomfortable.


Isabella is doing an elegant ballet dance whilst Constance is beside her dancing very badly trying to engage Isabella in a competition. 

The Blair Witch Project Analysis

Title Sequence Analysis of The Blair Witch Project By Grainne on Prezi

What do you expect from a Mockumentary?

Target Audience for a Mockumentary

As mockumentary is quite an uncommon genre and one that is quite vague, and so a specific target audience is hard to find. Therefore we are also looking at audiences for comedy/drama and documentaries.

For example looking at the statistics the target audience for Four Lions would be 35-44 year-old professional, business and white collar males.

However, we are planning to do a 'teen drama' style mockumentary and our main character will be a girl so our film could appeal more to 15-24 year old, female, manual and unskilled workers/students.

Title Sequence Deconstruction!!

The opening begins with the idents of the production companies. This is necessary to all films and something we will be doing ourselves. 

In this case it went in to an introduction by the director of the film, this is not necessary to a mockumentary film and will most likely be something we will leave out. 

With the title of the film the credits 

After this the only credits are for the characters themselves, as a mockumentary must be believable as a real documentary and to include credits for the actors playing the characters would make it obvious that it isn't. 

Conventions of a Mockumentary Word Collage

Iconography

As we are doing Mockumentary there are no real iconic images as the genre is more about the characters and less about specific things within a film, and so we have used the more famous mockumentaries and their directors. 

Conventions of a Mockumentary

We have taken many conventions from the opening scene of the mockumentary; Best in Show some of which are

• The serious setting, in this case a therapists' office
• subtle comedy, this is done through things such as revealing embarrassing acts 
• editing is used to show the reactions of characters, creating comedy
• In the opening clip they refer to a 'Beatrice' whilst in their therapy session. leading you to believe that this is their child, it is then revealed that Beatrice is their dog, it is this subtle and naive action on the characters part that creates the comedy attached to the mockumentary genre. 
• You see in many places slight camera shake, indicating a more low budget documentary which is what allows a mockumentary its comedy. 

• There are many interview style scenes that mock the documentary genre
• Credits at the bottom of the screen tell you the characters name as if ti were an interview with a real person, small indicators like these make the audience wonder if it is a real documentary
• The serious attitude of the characters, which adds to the comedy of a scene
• Characters are all very stereotypical

Iconic directors within the genre "Mockumentary"

One of the most iconic directors for our genre is Woody Allen.

Born 1st December 1935, Allen became a screenwriter,

director, actor, comedian, musician, author and playwrite.

Most of Allen's early and later work are of a comic genre, mixed with romance and philosophy. Some of his latest works we may recognise; Cassandra's dream starring Colin ferrel and Ewan McGregor; Match Point starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson; Zelig starring Allen and Mia Farrow.

Another iconic director is Peter Jackson and Costa Botes, who directed the film "Forgotten Silver" in which it claims to tell a story of a pioneering movie maker in New Zealand

Peter Jackson  being famous for such films as: The Lord Of The Rings trilogy starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen and others; King Kong starring Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody and The Lovely Bones starring Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz.

Conventions of a Mockumentary

We found that Cloverfield contained the typical conventions of a Mockumentary. For instance, the use of free-hand shots which can be very shaky, jump shots, lower definition i.e camera video quality and the realistic element to it, even with CGI effects.

High School Report we felt also contained the typical conventions of a Mockumentary, but that of which we could apply to our own project. For instance a School/College setting, humour and stories of teenagers on a day-to-day basis. Again, the use of free-hand camera, only probably not so shaky as that of Cloverfeild. There's also use of CCTV which, although we ourselves cannot obtain such, we like the idea of not just using a camera recorder, but using other resources when they're at hand. Giving us this "Big Brother" type feel, which is very much like a documetary style of film; cameras always on you, people watching your every move.

Diary of the Dead contained aspects we liked, for instance, once again, the free-hand shots. The film also contained lots of jump-cuts which adds to the scary effect of which it was trying to create, but also made us believe it to be more realistic, e.g. the camera cutting, or someone pausing the filming.
The film tended to be quite dark, lighting wise, in most parts which perhaps also adds to the realistic approach the director wished to convey.

History of Mockumentary Timeline

This is our Mockumentary timeline. We've added to the timeline what we thought to be major history of the genre. For instance the movies or types of media which convey the genre very well and the ones that are very popular.

Genre

Genre Research on Prezi

This is our brain storm of the possible, different genres we could have picked. We felt this was the best way to rule out what genres we could execute and those of which we could not. In the end we decided upon going with the "Mockumentary" genre. Looking through the prezi you shall see why.