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Everything about Mockumentary totally explained

Mockumentary (also known as a pseudo-documentary), a portmanteau of mock and documentary, is a film and TV genre, or a single work of the genre. A mockumentary is one of the comedy genres, although there are serious mockumentaries. The mockumentary is presented as a documentary recording real life, but is in fact fictional. It is a commonly used medium for parody and satire. They are often used to analyze current events and issues by using a fictional setting around it. Mockumentaries are often presented as historical documentaries with b roll and talking heads discussing past events or as cinéma vérité pieces following people as they go through various events. Examples of this type of satire date back at least to the 1950s (a very early example was a short piece on the "Swiss Spaghetti Harvest" that appeared as an April fool's joke on the British television program Panorama in 1957), though the term "mockumentary" is thought to have first appeared in the mid-1980s when This Is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film.
The false documentary form has also been used for some dramatic productions (and precursors to this approach date back to the radio days and Orson Welles' production of H. G. Wells' novel, The War of the Worlds).
   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 - for example, Operation Good Guys had a laugh track from its second series onwards.

Comedic examples

Film

Television

Series

  • Brass Eye, a series of mockumentaries by Chris Morris (UK, 1997)
  • The Games, an Australian TV comedy that follows the mayhem and bureaucratic snafu faced by the organisers of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. (Australia, 1998 and 2000)
  • The Naked Brothers Band, two real-life brothers Nat and Alex Wolff about a teenage fantasy of a world-famous kids' rock band. (US, 2007)
  • The Office, British satire on white-collar management, later remade for US and other audiences (UK/USA, 2001/2005).
  • Operation Good Guys, a British satire of an incompetent police force (often seen as a precursor to The Office, see above).
  • People Like Us, a British radio and TV comedy, featuring an inept interviewer (played by Chris Langham), who interviews people in various jobs. (UK, radio from 1995 to 1997, and television series 1999 to 2000.)
  • Platinum Weird, a band formed by Dave Stewart and Kara DioGuardi, and the subject of a VH1 mockumentary.
  • Prehistoric Park, a six-episode mockumentary that depicts a hypothetical scenario whereby a time machine is used to create a wildlife park.
  • Reno 911! Comedy Central parody of COPS about an inept police force in Reno, Nevada.
  • Summer Heights High, an Australian TV mockumentary about three fictitious characters at a public high school. All three protagonists are played by the actor and show's creator, Chris Lilley. Two of the characters in this series are characters previously featured in two of Chris Lilley's past television shows, including "We Can Be Heroes". (Australia, 2005)
  • Trailer Park Boys, follows Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles, as they commit crimes, and hatch crack-pot schemes to make money, most of which are illegal and often involve growing marijuana.
  • We Can Be Heroes, an Australian TV mockumentary about five fictitious candidates nominated for the prestigious Australian of the Year Award. All five protagonists are played by the actor and show's creator, Chris Lilley. (Australia, 2005)

    Specials & One-offs

  • , HBO Special about the making of a HBO special.
  • Norbert Smith - a Life, a personal project by English comedian Harry Enfield, satirising TV arts show biographies, British films of the 20th century, and the British acting fraternity.

    Individual episodes

    Sometimes an episode of an otherwise non-mockumentary series will be presented as a mockumentary.
  • The Comic Strip Presents
  • Drop The Dead Donkey
    • "The Newsmakers"
  • Entourage
    • "Welcome to the Jungle", an episode as a mock "making of" film about Medellín, the film the characters produce.
  • Night Court
    • "A Closer Look", an episode of in 1990 showing the affairs of the show from a news TV perspective.
  • The Simpsons

    Dramatic examples

    Film

  • AFR (2007), a Danish mockumentary about the fictional killing of the Danish prime minister by his secret gay lover.
  • (1998), a horror mockumentary that presents an "unedited" camcorder recording of a rural American family's encounter with aliens.
  • ...and I was born to sweet delight! (2000), directed by Iranian film maker Kiarash Anvari, is an experimental mockumentary in Samuel Beckett's style jumps from one time zone to another. Tells the story of a lonely man who films his daily life by an 8 mm camera and his lonely neighbour who talks about his daily life on reel tapes. They fill their lonliness in these ways.
  • The Blair Witch Project, a horror film in the form of a documentary about a vanished film crew. Also see Curse of the Blair Witch.
  • Cannibal Holocaust (1980), perhaps the first horror mockumentary and an undeniable predecessor of the Blair Witch Project. It tells the story of film students who take a trip to the Colombian jungle and end up eaten by revenge-thirsty cannibals.
  • Cloverfield, a 2008 movie which revolves around a skyscraper-sized monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people using a handheld camera. (US, 2008)
  • , an alternate history in which the Confederates won the American Civil War.
  • Culloden (1964), a BBC "documentary" of the battle from 1746, presented as if cameras had been there to film it.
  • Dadetown (1995), a faux documentary along the lines of Roger & Me - conflict in a small town between a fading industry and an emerging one.
  • David Holzman's Diary (1968), one of the earliest examples of false documentaries. In it a young man creates a film "diary" of his life falling apart.
  • The Day Britain Stopped, detailing a series of events leading from a nationwide train strike in the midst of winter, forcing all Britain's motorways to become gridlocked. The lack of employees able to make it to work in turn leads to two aircraft colliding over London.
  • Death of a President, a fictional documentary presented as being produced in 2008 detailing the assassination of United States president George W. Bush on October 19, 2007.
  • (2004), a blend of documentary and mockumentary footage. Tells the story of an obsessed fan who travels to meet Natalie Portman and loses his mind along the way.
  • I Am a Purifier! (2002), a short film directed by Kiarash Anvari. Tells the story of a young Prostitute tries to adapt herself with two different layers of this film; fiction and documentary.
  • Interview With the Assassin, with Raymond J. Barry as a terminally-ill man claiming he, not Lee Harvey Oswald, killed President John F. Kennedy.
  • The Last Broadcast, a horror film — the first film to be shot, edited, and distributed digitally — in the form of a documentary about the mysterious disappearance of a pair of cable television producers.
  • (2005), a fictional documentary about an anarcho-feminist porn collective.
  • The Magician (2005), an Australian mockumentary following the works of a hit man in Melbourne.
  • Il Mistero di Lovecraft - Road To L. (2005), an Italian horror mockumentary about H.P. Lovecraft coming to Italy in 1926.
  • Nothing So Strange, a fictional documentary about Citizens for Truth, an organization seeking further investigation into the 1999 assassination of Bill Gates.
  • Oil Storm (2005), a fictional documentary involving increased oil prices and a hurricane similar to Hurricane Katrina.
  • Punishment Park (1971)
  • The Second Renaissance (2003), a two-piece anime film and a part of The Animatrix. Presents fictional events leading to "machine rule" and to the Matrix series in documentary-style.
  • Supervolcano, a docudrama about the eruption of a Yellowstone volcano.
  • The War Game (1966), a fictional, worst-case-scenario docu-drama about nuclear war and its aftermath in and around a typical English city.

    Television

    Specials

  • Alternative 3, TV movie of a political conspiracy to establish a settlement on Mars.
  • Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon, a docu-drama that reports on a (fictitious) attack made by terrorists using the disease of smallpox to attack the world.

    Individual episodes

  • The West Wing
    • "Access ", an episode structured like a TV documentary.
  • The X-Files
    • "X-Cops", an episode made to look like an episode of the actual show COPS

    Other Mock Films and Television

    Reality Shows

  • The Comeback, a reality show type following the life of former "it" actress Valerie Cherish. (US, 2005)
  • Double The Fist, a fictional version of Jackass.
  • Drawn Together, a cartoon version of The Surreal Life.

  • News Shows

  • Special Bulletin (1983), was an NBC made-for-TV movie, which portrayed a live broadcast from a fictional American broadcasting network (Republic Broadcasting System, or RBS) on a nuclear terrorism incident in Charleston, South Carolina as they occurred. The realism of the broadcast caused a minor panic in Charleston at the time of its first airing, despite disclaimers shown at after each commercial break.
  • Without Warning (1994), was another TV film in the form of a mock newscast. Produced by CBS, it covered an apocalyptic alien attack scenario as seen through the eyes of a network TV news crew. Like Special Bulletin, reports of panic were also associated with its broadcast.
  • Countdown to Looking Glass (1984), a cable-TV docu-drama presented as a series of news reports concerning an escalation in the Middle East between the US and the USSR, that eventually leads to nuclear war. (This film, however, isn't completely a documentary as it includes dramatic interludes).
  • Ghostwatch (1992), a BBC television special in which a fictitious "live" paranormal investigation goes awry.
  • Babylon 5

    Documentary look and style

    Many shows take on a documentary look and style without actually pretending to be documentaries. Examples include:
  • Arrested Development
  • Curb Your Enthusiasm (the series, the HBO Special was a mockumentary).
  • The Thick Of It

    Filmographies

  • UC Berkeley Mockumentary Collection

    Footnotes

    Further Information

    Get more info on 'Mockumentary'.


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