Initial Ideas
This week was dedicated mostly to brainstorming ideas for an animated documentary. We tossed around a couple of ideas before settling on one going forward towards the end of the week. The first idea, which we seemed set on for a while was an idea involving creating a candid documentary following one of our classmates over the course of a week or two. The idea was to create a sort of meta documentary, where the documentarians (me and my partner) become the subjects of the documentary over time as their original plan falls apart. We wanted to create something which was 50% scripted, 50% genuine reactions and even recorded our tutors response to us pitching the idea for possible use at the beginning of the documentary.
However, after reflecting on this idea for about 24 hours, the logistics started to weigh down on us and we opted to abandon the idea in favour of a fully scripted mockumentary. This idea seemed to rely too heavily on factors which we couldn't necessarily definitely control. While a neat idea, had we not pulled it off perfectly, without any hitches along the way, the documentary would have been very underwhelming. There was also the fact that we couldn't guarantee the subject's consent at least until halfway through production (due to the way we had planned the documentary out) which could have led to a situation where we are forced to abandon an idea weeks into production.
We decided it would be better, if we wanted to create a deconstructive documentary, to create something completely scripted; a mockumentary which uses the aesthetic conventions of documentary filmmaking, live action and animated, in order to take aim at what we perceived to be injustices and examples of using documentary making in an exploitative manner to suit the makers own ends. We highlighted examples of this which we each found particularly annoying, mostly coming from the world of television. Catfish was a documentary which came up a lot in our discussion, as we both felt the original film was manipulative, misleading and pushed a regressive social message, solidified by the follow up MTV reality show. We toyed around with this idea of creating a Catfish mockumentary starring an actual Catfish, though we didn't get far with the idea due to it's absurdity and our lack of coherent vision or message.
From this we did determine what the message of our mockumentary should be and what purpose we wanted it to serve. We wanted to create a mockumentary which deconstructs the way narratives are projected onto the subject to suit the documentarians ends in an exploitative and manipulative way; to instil a sense of false sentimentality or anger in the way shows such as Channel 4's Benefits Street exploit the working class in order to push a sensationalist, anti-welfare narrative.
It was around this time we decided to add Brogan to our group, making us a group of three. We discussed with her our ideas for the message we wanted to communicate and she immediately threw at us some of her own, which fit into our mould. As a group we created a mind-map of various ideas, from PSA's treating children as a sexual health epidemic to experiment documentaries, seeing what happens if you drink just energy drinks for a week etc. However, one idea we kept coming back to was along the lines of Secret Millionaire, meets Alan Partridge. A rich, egotistical, out of his depth businessman who, in order to sell his new book, embarks on a self aggrandizing trip to a 'rough' area of the inner city, exaggerating the conditions as if they were a war zone and making himself look good at every opportunity. This idea really clicked with every member of the group and soon we were writing scenarios for what sort of trouble he could get into.
This idea really resonated I feel as it fulfils something we all wanted from this project; to work on something more lighthearted, with a satirical edge, as a change from our usual output. It also helps we are all big fans of British comedy; of characters such as Alan Partridge and shows such as The IT Crowd and Brass Eye. Uniquely British comedy characters who play on stereotypes, but in a deconstructive and humanising way.
No comments:
Post a Comment