We watched many documentaries and mockumentaries films such as 'One Direction - This Is Us', 'Michael Jackson - This Is It' and 'Spinal Tap' where all three films conform with the theme of our film Comedy/Documentary, however Michael Jacksons and One Directions films was far more serious and more like a fly on the wall documentary whereas our film was more staged. We also watched some other films and television series that fit within the mockumentary style, such as 'The Office'. Watching these films and these televisions series enabled us to compare our own film and get inspiration for it to better our film and make it more comical. We related our film to some things to conform to the genre conventions to make our film stand out from all the others. To fully answer this question i have separated it into four sections: Narrative, Conventions, Characters and Style.Narrative- Levi Strauss devised a way of analysing narrative and studied hundreds of myths and legends all around the world, from that he found out that we as humans make sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary oppositions. He found out that narratives are arranged around the conflict of binary opposites. Basically that binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure. Using Strauss' theory, we set up an binary opposition: that Keith and C.Dot are so opposite in how they are and also how we would usually see a musical duo to be, they are the complete contrasts to this.
Another theory that we adopted in our film is that of Barthes' enigma code, this is five codes which are woven into any narrative. The main code we used was the 'Hermeneutic Code' which refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the viewer. The purpose of the author in this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until the final scenes when all will be revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved. This relates to our film because it raises questions such as, Why are these two characters together? How did they meet? Why was Keith in prison? What was the real reason why they broke up in the first place? Why are they back together?
Characters - Keith Abraham Lovesworth (One of the two protagonist)
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Keith is presented as an extremely holy, church goer who has found himself and has been born again. We can tell this because of the clothes he wears, which are very smart, simple and religious looking. We can also tell this by the way he speaks and what he says;' however later on in the opening sequence, you find out that Keith has been to prison which then juxtaposes what we thought we knew of him and does not make him as holy as we thought. The audience sees Keith as a very flamboyant character because of his monologue he has nearing the end of the opening, which the shots of him walking, and when the camera pans down when he is lying on the grass are all shown over his speech, which the viewer found amusing when surveyed, therefore makes him loveable because the viewer knows that he's been to prison yet still found him funny.
C.Dot (The other protagonist)
C.Dot is presented at the start of the opening sequence as non-stereotypical singing partner, who happens to look like a harden criminal that grew up on the streets of London, which from the offset creates an amusing atmosphere as it contrasts Keith entirely as the viewer wonders how they got together as they are completely opposite. Later on in the sequence when C.Dot is looking in the mirror seriously, we still think he will be the serious tone to C.Dot which will continue throughout the whole of the opening sequence and my group all hoped to make the viewer think that they will not really learn much about him as we all hoped they would think he will be the guarded character out of the two. This all changes when he starts speaking because of the way he sounds as we find out that he is rather geeky with a bad stutter; which now makes the audience feel at ease with him as they find him more approachable.
Style: Titles
After doing a vast amount of research on various opening titles for the genre we wanted to create, Connor edited in the titles throughout the task and then added footage in to fit around it. We took inspiration from Justin Bieber's title openings, Michael Jacksons title opening and Spinal Tap's title opening. We wanted to take inspiration from these three films because we tried to keep within our specific genre when researching as we wanted to make it look as professional and as realistic to the three film openings as possible.
Mise En Scene
Costume: For our costumes, myself and Connor wanted to really stereotype the characters as we wanted our audience to be shocked when the two characters started to talk. We decided to dress Keith up all in black smart clothes and make him wear a dog collar, which implies that he is a vicar thus reinforcing the fact of him being extremely religious. For C.Dot, we decided that he should mainly wear hoodies, hats, sunglasses and a lot of gold chains to portray to the audience that he is some sort of gangster.
Actors: Our main actors are C.Dot and Keith, who are played by Connor and Nathan. They play a failed singing duo who won the X Factor and had hits all over the globe but then something happens which make the pair fall out, but now they are reforming the band for the biggest comeback of all comebacks.
Make-Up: We used no make-up during the filming of this opening sequence as we did not need to convey anyone being hurt (blood, gash).
Setting: The majority of our film opening is set indoors, we used the green screen a lot to emulate the allusion of being on stage singing to thousands of screaming fans. It was set in the outdoors for Keith as he loves God's gift to the world (mother nature) and for C.Dot the shots were mostly indoors in the recording studio to represent that he likes to make mix tapes.
Props: We used a microphone, a guitar, gold chains and sunglasses for our props. They all represent their musical back ground and their time in the spotlight.
Lighting:During the majority of the filming process, we used natural light for Keith outdoors shots to make the film look more real to life. However, the majority of our lighting was the use of studio lights because it made our skin look better when in front of the green screen. Connor used an effect on Premier to make the first few shots in black and white to illustrate the failing of the band, this was pathetic fallacy as the emulated how Connor felt at the time.
Genre Conventions:
Our film challenges the traditional documentary conventions because it is mocking the music industry making it more amusing than serious and factual. It mocks celebrity life and pop culture.
Our film is extremely similar to the film Anchorman as they mock the news industry which makes it the most similar to ours as we are mocking the music industry, they both intertwine together because news and music are connected showing that we based our characters and the way they act on how actors/actresses act in Anchorman which is very sarcastic.