Mockumentaries

What is a Mockumentary?
A mockumentary (a blend of mock & documentary), is a typeof film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. They may be either comedic or dramatic in form, although comedic mockumentaries are more common. Mockumentaries are often partly or wholly improvised, as an unscripted style of acting helps to maintain the pretense of reality. Comedic mockumentaries rarely have laugh tracks, also to sustain the atmosphere, although there are exceptions.
Conventions of a Mockumentary:

• They use the same codes and conventions as documentary and related media, such as an authoritative voice-over narrator or on-screen presenter, apparently 'real' footage of events, archival photographs, interviews with apparent 'experts' and 'eyewitnesses', and the other familiar ways of representing reality.
• Mockumentaries 'work' because of the assumptions and expectations that we as viewers have of representations of reality. When we see a text that looks and sounds real, we tend to begin reading and responding to it as factual. We may in fact read 'real' texts in very different ways to fictional texts.
• At some point a mockumentary will 'flag' that it is fictional. This might happen through promotional material, or become obvious when watching the mockumentary itself, or not be revealed until later (as with mockumentaries designed to be hoaxes)
• Because they demonstrate how easily all of the codes and conventions we associate with the conveying of 'reality' can be faked, mockumentary can often cause us as viewers to consider why we place so much faith in the accuracy and integrity of genres such as documentary.
• Mockumentary, then, is a fictional form which can encourage us to reflect on the nature of the documentary and related genres, and on the 'privileged' position that we tend to give such factual texts.

Many popular mockumentaries are simply looking to create humour by using the documentary as the 'straight person' in a comedy double-act. They make an absurd subject funnier by taking an apparently rational and sober perspective on it. Others incorporate a number of popular culture references, often building a satiric commentary on other media. Some of the more interesting mockumentaries can create quite 'layered' forms of experience for their audiences.

Why create a Mockumentary:

• simply as a novelty or stunt style;
• for promotional purposes;
• as an innovative dramatic style;
• or for parody and satire.

Examples:
 Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan 
Synopsis:  
Borat Sagdiyev is a TV reporter of a popular show in Kazakhstan as Kazakhstan's sixth most famous man and a leading journalist. He is sent from his home to America by his government to make a documentary about American society and culture.
 Conventions: 

• Hand held camera 
• "On the run" interviews 
• Synchronous sound recording 
• Archive footage of maps 
• Inappropriate/ exaggerated characters 
• Sacha Baron Cohen acts the part of Borat, who is an entirely fictional character