"THIS MOVIE HAS BEEN EDITED.........."

I typically hate when movies start with quotes or "THE FILM YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE".

But ironically I need one in front of mine to help set the tone.

It's a mockumentry but needs to look legit like it was discovered from raw footage by the police.

This raw footage is gonna be the actual movie. Blair Witch style without the vomit inducing handheld camera shake!

My problem is I want to put some music in it but fear it will lose it's legitimacy by doing so.

I thought about having a disclaimer at the begining saying something to the effect of :

THE FILM YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE HAS BEEN EDITED TOGETHER BY "ROCK BOTTOM FILMS" FROM RAW FOOTAGE THAT WAS DISCOVERED

FROM THE ACTUAL CRIME SCENE IN THE TRUE STORY YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE."

This would explain why there is music in there.......I think.

Any better ideas on how to get this across?

I have no idea what you are saying. Confused

i think i get it - you've effectively got conflicting style requirements - on the one hand you want it to seem like it's found footage, but on the other you want to have music and other director-esque touches.

if it's mockumentary as opposed to documentary style, you could go so far as to put a fake documentary director narration/interview at the front, waffling about how hard it was to get hold of the footaget etc. complete with french accent and goatee beard if you so desire. or you could wrap it with graphics/stings so it plays like a true-crime-on-tv show. or you could create a story about some police nerd who's hacked this together at home in his off duty hours.

Adding music will decrease the sense of "found footage." Save the music for some kind of intro, and any wrap-up scenes that are clearly "studio made."

storitel --
I'm not sure what you mean by a difference between "docu" and "mocku" styles, unless you intend "mocku" to mean comic and/or over-the-top with the earnestness of documentary, while "docu" style is supposed to look like a "real documentary."

THIS IS SPINAL TAP and the Christopher Guest classics are certainly "mockumentaries" but isn't BLAIR WITCH PROJECT too?

Just trying to clarify the terminology here ...

-- Paul

	Gage wrote:
	I have no idea what you are saying.

STORITEL clearly does. Wink

Last edited by flip808 on Fri May 29, 2009 6:41 am; edited 1 time in total

	storitel wrote:
	i think i get it - you've effectively got conflicting style requirements - on the one hand you want it to seem like it's found footage, but on the other you want to have music and other director-esque touches.

Exactly!

I would have a hard time watching some raw found footage with a music score set to it and not think it was fake.

So I was trying to figure out a way around it.

Maybe there isn't a believable route here.

I think I'll take CLINCO's advice and save the music for the trailer.

	Clinco wrote:
	THIS IS SPINAL TAP and the Christopher Guest classics are certainly "mockumentaries" but isn't BLAIR WITCH PROJECT too? Just trying to clarify the terminology here ... -- Paul

Yeah they both are.
The movie "STREET THIEF" was passed off at film festivals as a documentry but then when they found out it wasn't real, some documentry film makers were highly upset because
they thought it should not have been in the documentry category much less winning that category.

To my understanding: Any film that is based on a fictional story or characters but presented documentry style is considered a MOCKUMENTRY. It can be a drama,action,comedy or whatever.

The Blair Witch was considered by the people who thought it was REAL a documentry.
Since it was not REAL it would be considered mocking a documentry, making it in my personal view a mockumentry. Laughing

i feel a rant coming on...

the only thing that separates documentary from fiction is the claim that documentary is a representation of truth. generally when people think of documentary they have an idea of interviews, fly on the wall footage and so on - but documentary can range from art pieces "documenting" places events or people, through to dramatized TV series "documenting" life in ancient Rome.

i did post-grad study on documentary and by the end I was pretty disillusioned because the truth claim is usually not justified - the apparent truth of documentary is often fiction. case in point - the seminal documentary "Nanook of the North" was staged. Another case in point - TV crime shows following the cops. Done with police approval, designed to show police as heroes stamping out dangerous criminals. That's obviously true - you say. Maybe in parts - but it's not balanced - it's editorialised, done for sensationalism, to sell advertising. It creates a biased view in the audience that there is more violent crime than there actually is....

so for me "documentary style" is anything which tries to appear real or true to the audience by using accepted documentary tricks - handheld camera, interviews, news-style footage. mockumentary is anything which abuses the documentary style for humor or other commentary effect, where it's clear to the audience that it's not intended to be "real" "documentary". So

Cloverfield, Borat, Ali G, Blair Witch - documentary style
Alan Partridge, This is Spinal Tap - mockumentary style

Last edited by storitel on Fri May 29, 2009 8:06 am; edited 1 time in total

could you fill that audio space with something other than music? not the projector reel Razz

but something more subtle to location maybe, you obviously think it needs something...?

or voice over:

Ladies and gentlemen the story you are about to see is true, only the footage has been edited slightly to protect the integrity.

It's a film. It's fiction. Claim whatever you like about it.

After all, that's what the Cohen Brothers did in Fargo.

_________________
Pontificatious Ramblings

Styles can be mixed. In the fiction film GORILLAS IN THE MIST, Sigourney Weaver is apparently in the wild in the middle of a group of huge mountain gorillas. The scene was shot "docu" style with a locked down camera supposedly camoflaged by some branches. I totally believed it at the time, except that those were the finest gorilla suits ever built (I recall a figure of $40K - $50K apiece).

shaughan --
All "documentaries" have a "fiction" aspect because the filmmakers are selecting 90 minutes from endless hours of raw footage. The selection process certainly adds a point of view, but that doesn't necessarily translate a doc into pure "fiction."

FARGO was supposedly based on a true story, but it wasn't "documentary" at all. "Based on a True Story" really doesn't mean a whole lot. Mamet's THE UNTOUCHABLES was "Based on a True Story" and was very stylized fiction.

Every movie should begin with the notice "Based on a True Story" -- I wouldn't leave out LORD OF THE RINGS, either.

Two movies based on World War One are ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and PATHS OF GLORY. Is one of those more "true" than the other? How about GREEN BERET and THE THIN RED LINE? All of these are fiction "Based on a True Story" and all have completely different points of view.

The fact that a story, used as the source of a movie, may have actually happened doesn't mean much ... except maybe as a marketing tool.

storitel --
Thank you. I would have used "mockumentary" for anything that wasn't built from actual documentary footage.

-- Paul

Dang, Paul. You ran with that Smile

My point was this: If you are doing a work of fiction, you can do whatever the hell you want. It's fiction.

That's all Smile

_________________
Pontificatious Ramblings

Wow ,this really turned into more than I expected. Laughing

All I really was looking for was ........a better way to say:

"THIS FILM HAS BEEN EDITED TOGETHER BY "ROCK BOTTOM FILMS" FROM RAW FOOTAGE THAT WAS DISCOVERED

FROM THE ACTUAL CRIME SCENE IN THE TRUE STORY YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE."

Thats all.

I do enjoy reading everyones views on what a documentry is vs a mockumentry.

But that was not the problem I was asking for help with. Laughing

Verbage......any ideas?

flip:

Don't use a music score with anything other than the intro. Doc footage doesn't have a score. Maybe HOOP DREAMS did, but not throughout the whole thing.

If you add some kind of post-production voice over, you might try music with that, but you probably won't need it.

**

First title card:

ROCK BOTTOM FILMS PRESENTS

<< TITLE >>

**

Second title card:

BASED ON A TRUE STORY

THE FOLLOWING FILM << or VIDEOTAPE >> EVIDENCE WAS FOUND AT THE SCENE

**

Third title card:

PARENTAL WARNING: THE CONTENT OF THIS MOTION PICTURE MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN UNDER 17 YEARS OF AGE

**

That last one probably isn't true, but it might help build the audience. Everybody loves "forbidden films."

**

It might be fun to stage a news camera snooping around the hideous crime scene. Perhaps you can get some actors as cops to tell your hand-held cameraman "Get out of here -- no pictures!" and put his hand over the lens, while having your voiceover introduction. Then go into it.

-- Paul

Sweet Jeebus flip.

Slow. Down.

Not only are you getting advice on how to frame an issue for each style, but someone who STUDIED DOCUMENTARIES, at a SCHOOL, for a LONG TIME, just gave you the tools to do better script analysis and planning. If you learn from what they're saying, your film will be more watchable. Guaranteed.

Often, an answers to your question isn't exactly what you expect, but that doesn't make it any less valuable or off-topic.

And just in case you keep running full-steam ahead, I'll add this for you: "Thanks guys - good stuff".