Mockumentary

The Spin Off: Mockumentary
As every form of art took a sense of post-modernism upon itself so parodies appeared. The Mockumentary is a clever fictional genre which shows the audience how easy it is to make people believe something that is not true really is.

The first and most famous Mockumentary, that wasn’t intended to be a Mockumentary at all in the first place, but had the effect of one, was Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast (1938).

Halloween, October 30th, 1938 Orson Welles directed a version of H.G Wells War of the Worlds science fiction novel, to heighten dramatic effect in his radio play, Welles decided to perform the story as a series of news broadcasts, often interrupting music to bring the latest update on the “huge flaming object” had dropped on a farm near Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The authenticity of the actors and the fact that many people had only tuned into the play after it had started, so where not aware it was War of the Worlds lead to the biggest case of mass hysteria ever, Americas everywhere thought they were under attack by aliens.

Next, a “parody” of Pennebaker’s rockumentaries came Spinal Tap: A Rockumentary by Martin Di Bergi (1984), synopsised on the internet as:

“In 1982 legendary British heavy metal band Spinal Tap’s attempt an American comeback tour accompanied by a fan who is also a film-maker. The resulting documentary, interspersed with powerful performances of Tap’s pivotal music and profound lyrics, candidly follows a rock group heading towards crisis, culminating in the infamous affair of the eighteen-inch-high Stonehenge stage prop.”

Spinal Tap in fact never existed as a band except for the film and the soundtrack of the film. The film was a spoof not only of the Rockumentary but also of the rock and roll scene of the time.

It used aspects of drama in the pre-production and organisation of the film, scripting action, using actors, rehearsing, etc. However it display to the audience what looked like unrehearsed action happening as it was filmed, with handheld and cinematography which has a rushed, unplanned feel about it with natural lighting and what appears to be sound from the moment to create a fictional film that looks like a documentary. Many younger generations today watch the film, blissfully unaware that Spinal Tap were never a classic British band.

The latest region of Mockumentary is the Horror Mockumentary, obviously influenced by the effect Orson Welles had on his audience, many horrors for years have been using the “based on a true story” preface or ending to their films. However there are two significant films that went a step further, The Last Broadcast (1998) and its very similar successor The Blair Witch Project (1999).

Both films work on the concept that what is being shown to the audience is “found footage”, footage that was once filmed by the people who are in it and who disappeared. However the latter of the two was far much legendary than its predecessor because of a highly intelligent marketing campaign which suggested that this really was found footage and went into detail with newspaper cuttings, interviews online and more to trick the masses. To begin with, it worked! Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez become renown worldwide for their trickery and apparently original format of fiction filmmaking.

The Last Broadcast (1998) follows cable cult show “Fact or Fiction” as they recruit a couple of local Jersey fans in their search for the Jersey Devil. Whilst The Blair Witch Project (1999) saw three amateur filmmakers search for the Blair Witch.

Both films used 16mm, in fact The Blair Witch Project shows the use of 16mm overtly in the cinema release as it takes up only a small proportion of the screen added to the handheld makes the audience feel like they are moving with the camera. (And has caused many cases of motion-sickness because of this.)

Neither film uses dramatic lighting, sound effects which seem out of place in the “reality” of the film, they quite often use real people (actors or not). (Many of the people interviewed in Blair Witch weren’t actors and the actors were credited as playing themselves.)

Though the Producers of Blair Witch had scripted the majority of the action, they left the actors with little or no idea what each other would be doing, the Producers also lower their food rations on occasion to create greater emotional responses. Much of the reactions on footage WERE ACTUALLY REAL!

They were not the first horror films to look like documentaries or give the appearance of being so, even if they can be credited for the first to sell themselves as Real! Cannibal Holocaust (1980) directed by Ruggero Deodato, was so convincing in its portrayal of a scientist looking for filmmakers who had been documenting the habitats of cannibals across the border, that the producers were taken to court. Ruggero and the production company were only released after the actors themselves came to the courtroom as proof. Though the animal cruelty of the film is in fact sadly real. Horror has used this sense of Documentary to add fear since the 70s, its okay if the horror is on the cinema screen, you can sleep at night. But what do you do if it is real?