Pre-Production: Mockumentary Shooting Test

What Will We Be Filming?

As part of our pre-production package, Kate and I decided that we wanted to do a test shoot particularly focusing on the filming style of Mockumentaries. So, as I'm the cinematographer, I've decided to incorporate my knowledge and current research which I've done on Mockumentaries to film a classic and brief situation but giving it a Mockumentary style. This test shoot will focus just on the filming stylistic of Mockumentaries instead of the plot itself.

Test Shoot Idea

Jim & Dwight: the 2 characters which my
characters for this are based on

Below is a vague script which I created which we based our test shoot on. Although very basic, the purpose of this test shoot is to see how to add a Mockumentary style when filming. The key idea is that there is a plot which intervenes with interviews and more importantly that the camera work fits into the Mockumentary genre. In bold are typical filming conventions which can be seen in the Mockumentaries which I've analysed.

This is very basic as the details aren't needed - only the filming style. So, I've decided to create a scene which is very similar to the scene leading to the title sequence in The Office US. Most episodes conventionally include a sequel which sometimes build up for the series, or instead commonly show interactions between characters. This could be characters disrupting one another, etc.

Location: Maidstone Studios

Title: The Classroom

Plot: The plot consists of studying those working in a working environment, however this time in a classroom. I've decided to focus this short scene by using a similar relationship as Dwight and Jim on The US Office, whose relationship are clearly shown as Jim frequently annoys Dwight.

Synopsis: Two characters. One character is sitting at a computer, whilst the other is sitting at a desk near/next to the other character. The character on the computer is called 'Charlie'. The character at the desk is called 'Darren'. We are introduced to these characters with a handheld long shot of their working environment, showing the situation of the two characters. 

Darren is continuously tapping a pen on the desk as he is trying to think on what to write next.
You can see that he is struggling on what to write and is becoming irritated. The camera reinforces the tapping by quickly zooming on him tapping, showing an extreme close up of Darren's face and switching between the two C/Us. This then leads to a pan from Darren's tapping to Charlie's face as he tries to concentrate. 

Meanwhile, Charlie is trying to hold his anger in as he cannot take anymore of the tapping. He has been trying to crack on with his work as he has a deadline fast approaching, and has had to deal with Charlie's fidgeting and tapping for weeks. This is emphasised by the camera: we see a quick zoom on Charlie's face showing his change in facial expressions, quick movement on the camera showing his hands clenching and stopping typing, and a shot which pull focuses from Darren's tapping to Charlie staring at the tapping looking angry.

Now we move to an interview with Charlie. You don't hear a crew member ask him a question, it simply begins with Charlie answering the question by himself. For example, Charlie will say: "What annoys me the most when I'm trying to do my work? Darren's constant tapping." This will be the beginning of his interview where now he will continue to pick on other parts which Darren does to annoy him. Whilst this interview happens, we then see a small montage of clips showing Darren annoying Charlie on separate occasions. This will then  (and the scene we see of Darren tapping the pen to annoy Charlie) show footage of similar filming styles, such as:
   - Quick zooms
   - Pull focuses between characters
   - Intentional footage of the camera re-focusing
   - Extreme close ups
   - Pauses at the end of a conversation/scene
   - Movement of the camera to emphasise what the characters saying e.g. slight zoom in/out   
     halfway through a conversation
   - Characters Looking into the camera
   - Emphasised camera movement everytime there's a movement in shot.
   - Other conventions (see Mockumentary analysis posts for more information)

These montages will be very brief, and will show the following scenes:
   - Darren throwing a paper airplane at Charlie
   - Darren hiding Charlie's computer mouse
   - Darren unplugging Charlie's computer.

Once we see these snippets we then have an interview with Darren which is very brief. All the interview consists of is Darren just smirking as he finds it satisfying annoying Charlie. However, likewise to the previous interview, both interviews instead consist of a fixed style of filming:
   - Fixed shots
   - No camera movement
   - Iconic backgrounds which match the environment. 
   - To generalise an interview which remains conventional for any typical interview.

The final act of the scene will show Charlie's reaction as he looses his anger on Darren by standing up, walking over to Charlie and throwing his pen across the room. The camera will remain conventional by frequently changing camera size to match Charlie storming over to Darren, showing Darren laughing but looking in the camera, zooming in as the door closes, etc.

Below is the shot list which I created showing what we will be filming. However as this just an experiment, the shot list may be altered or added to depending on our actual shoot which is tomorrow. I decided not to bother creating a formatted script on Final Draft and instead just create a shot list for now. This however will be updated and created once we have filmed the test shoot, and will be added into our pre-production.

Shot List for Test Shoot

Stay tuned for the edited video and feedback on whether we feel this test shoot was beneficial for us!