Mockumentary: Life of a Wasteman

Description This would be a “fly on the wall” mockumentary where you take a

fictional character and insert a slang term “wasteman”, which this specific character is classed as, and show how that kind of person would live his life. I got this idea from watching different comedy sketches which eventually left me to come across different mockumentaries such as “100% Bent” and movie “Borat”

This would be an original idea because this kind of youth based documentary has fully been attempted in a long length realistic manner. This has mainly been attempted poorly as a parody of how British youth are seen in some sense whereas a completely new character is created.

This particular idea would be typically hard to do because it would entail, such as getting someone to play the part of the “wasteman” and making up an entire storyboard of what this character would do and make it all look believable and factual.

The Aim The purpose of this documentary would just

be for comedy as most of the proclaimed facts would be completely fictional. Also it would be used to look into the slang term “wasteman” and perhaps give a new perspective on how it is seen. Typically this kind of show would be on Youtube as it would be fairly short and would come in small episodes but it could also be seen on BBC as a comedy segment to another show.

Conventions Conventions used in this production would

be: Voiceovers – When the for when the narrator

is speaking Music – To add emphasis to certain scenes of

the documentary, also to keep it interesting Interviews – Segments for when the

wasteman is speaking directly to the audience

Astons – If someone significant appears on screen, an Aston may be used to give info on the person

Cutaways – For when I want to jump from one scene of the documentary quickly to another.

Target Audience The Primary Target audience would typically be 16-21 year olds

and typically boys since the jokes and more of the comedy would be better suited to a slightly more audience due to language and the actions would be better suited to a male audience.

I know this because when I handed out questionnaires to the public, more positive feedback for the idea from the males that I handed the questionnaire to.

A Secondary Target audience could also be seen from about 14-16 year olds since whilst some of the jokes may contain inappropriate comments, the documentary will be typically immature and better suited to a younger audience who could appreciate such immaturity, especially a lot of young people would be featured.

Primary Research For this particular documentary research I pitched

this idea to a focus group of people and let them voice their ideas on a voice recording. Some of the more constructive comments were:“This would be terribly hard but could turn out incredibly well if done right”“This idea is awesome, I’m looking forward to it!”“Sounds good but be weary of the storyline and how you plan to plot out how this documentary would run smoothly”

These comments made me think more into how I would make this documentary work especially since it would be mixed of factual and fictional statements.

Secondary Research For my secondary research I looked

at other examples of mockumentaries like Borat and 110% Bent.

I used these mockumentaries as templates so that I would have an idea of how to make a mockumentary look like and still make it comedic and legitimate.

If this idea were to be picked as my final idea I could improve upon the research by going more in depth on what aspects of each mockumentary could be useful to me.

Cost To Make This documentary wouldn’t cost that much in particular to

make but the main thing that would need to be paid for would be the multiple cameras that would be needed to help film.

The equipment that would be in use would be:

Canon EOS SLR Camera x2 £558.00

New Takstar Stereo Shotgun Microphone x2 £43.90

Trixes 115cm Telescopic Video camera tripod x2 £15.80

Also one would need to hire another person to help with the filming – making shots are well placed and also filming in a different angle where the two cameras are both needed to film the same segment.

Another thing that would have to be paid for in this documentary would be having to pay actors to pose as the main character within the mockumentary and all other actors who may be involved in the events that are filmed.