Mockumentary: Life of a Wasteman

Description This would be a “fly on the wall” mockumentary where you take a

fictional character and insert a slang term “wasteman”, which this specific character is classed as, and show how that kind of person would live his life. I got this idea from watching different comedy sketches which eventually left me to come across different mockumentaries such as “100% Bent” and movie “Borat”

This would be an original idea because this kind of youth based documentary has fully been attempted in a long length realistic manner. This has mainly been attempted poorly as a parody of how British youth are seen in some sense whereas a completely new character is created.

This particular idea would be typically hard to do because it would entail, such as getting someone to play the part of the “wasteman” and making up an entire storyboard of what this character would do and make it all look believable and factual.

The Aim

The purpose of this documentary would just be for

comedy as most of the proclaimed facts would be

completely fictional. Also it would be used to look

into the slang term “wasteman” and perhaps give a

new perspective on how it is seen. Typically this

kind of show would be on Youtube as it would be

fairly short and would come in small episodes but it

could also be seen on BBC as a comedy segment

to another show.

Conventions

Conventions used in this production would be:

Voiceovers – When the for when the narrator is

speaking

Music – To add emphasis to certain scenes of the

documentary, also to keep it interesting

Interviews – Segments for when the wasteman is

speaking directly to the audience

Astons – If someone significant appears on

screen, an Aston may be used to give info on the

person

Cutaways – For when I want to jump from one

scene of the documentary quickly to another.

Target Audience

The Primary Target audience would typically be 16-21 year olds and typically boys since the jokes and more of the comedy would be better suited to a slightly more audience due to language and the actions would be better suited to a male audience.

I know this because when I handed out questionnaires to the public, more positive feedback for the idea from the males that I handed the questionnaire to.

A Secondary Target audience could also be seen from about 14-16 year olds since whilst some of the jokes may contain inappropriate comments, the documentary will be typically immature and better suited to a younger audience who could appreciate such immaturity, especially a lot of young people would be featured.

Primary Research

For this particular documentary research I pitched this idea to a focus group of people and let them voice their ideas on a voice recording. Some of the more constructive comments were:“This would be terribly hard but could turn out incredibly well if done right”“This idea is awesome, I’m looking forward to it!”“Sounds good but be weary of the storyline and how you plan to plot out how this documentary would run smoothly”

These comments made me think more into how I would make this documentary work especially since it would be mixed of factual and fictional statements.

Secondary Research For my secondary research I looked

at other examples of mockumentaries like Borat and 110% Bent.

I used these mockumentaries as templates so that I would have an idea of how to make a mockumentary look like and still make it comedic and legitimate.

If this idea were to be picked as my final idea I could improve upon the research by going more in depth on what aspects of each mockumentary could be useful to me.