Focus Group 1 - Responses

These were the summary of the responses I received from my focus group:

      1. What makes mockumentaries so successful, as comedies?

Adam- They have real life situations, which people can make fun of.

Joseph- Because they have a take in real life situations, so you can relate to.

Khiz- Has real life situations being mocked, so they can be relatable.

Jordan- You still give information about real life situations, but make it funny.
Mr Gordon-  Often mockumentaries create humour because they parody the serious nature of a documentary.  The protagonist will often act as if the documentary being made is serious, and we can laugh at their inability to carry it out properly.

2.  Do you think mockumentaries are suited to a left wing or a right wing audience, or does it not matter?

Adam- It does not matter.

Joseph- Left wing because they're less politically respected.

Khiz- It doesn’t matter.

Jordan- It doesn’t matter.
Mr Gordon- They also tend to make good use of stereotypes, even when this childish, for example in Borat, when he is presented as backward and ignorant of western culture. 

      3. Do you think there will be any difficulties about making a mockumentary set in a school?

Adam- It depends on what you make fun of, but overall people will enjoy it.

Joseph- Yes because a school as a lot of sensitive issues, and might get upset.

Khiz- It will be fine.

Jordan- Yes because you have to go against stereotypes, and certain students might get offended by those stereotypes.

Mr Gordon- Mockumentaries are often controversial because their political themes and use of stereotypes might be offensive to certain groups (e.g. Kazakhstani people responding to Borat).

Audience survey

This is the survey I carried out, this was for research on what other people think about the mockumnetary genre, to see what fans of the mockumentary genre want to see, so that I can develop my initial ideas for the teaser trailer. I was looking at the connections between different information, for example, was their a link between someone's age, and their opinons about mockumentary. 

1. Age:

2. Gender:

3. Where would you see yourself in the political spectrum? (1-5) 1 being left and 5 being right.

4. How interesting are politics to you? (1-5) 1 being not at all, 5 being very interested.

5. What do you think about mockumentaries on a scale of 1-5? (1 being not at all, 5 being amazing)

6. What is your favourite comedy sub-genre? Please tick

• Action Comedy
• Romantic Comedy
• Crime Comedy
• Black comedy
• Comedy Drama
• Comedy Horror
• Mockumentary

7. What is your favourite mockumentary film, if any?

8. What is your favourite comedy film?

9. Do you think there are any problems with the mockumentary genre?

10. What type of teaser trailer do you prefer?

• Single scene trailers
• Footage that’s not in the main film
• Classic cinematic trailer

11. How much do you want teaser trailers to reveal?

• Very little/nothing
• Moderate amount
• A lot/the main details of the plot

12. Where do you usually watch them?

• YouTube
• Social media sites
• Cinema/DVDs
• Other online sites

13. How successful are teaser trailers in generating interest?

• Not very successful
• Moderately
• Very successful

Target audience

Our film is going to be a comedic mockumentary set within a secondary school. The predictions I have made are uncertain because this genre has a very wide fan base and demographic. In general I imagine gender is not that relevant in terms of fans. Age however, is more significant because there aren’t many young fans.  Mockumentaries are usually aimed at adults, and there are many jokes and references that younger viewers will not understand. They often present adult themes, which will not be appropriate for a young child to view. For example, Borat is satirising people who make fun of different cultures. However, it may still come across as racist, because the irony comes from the use of stereotypes, and this may not be picked up by younger viewers.

Before carrying out some research about fans of the genre, I was uncertain about their political leanings.  My initial thoughts was that people who are very right wing, would be very interested in this genre in particular Borat, because the film seems to parody different races, however, they are mainly parodying people who are racist themselves. Therefore, the audience is likely to not be right wing, and my predictions were inaccurate.

I did some research on the ‘Profiles’ section of YouGov because I wanted to get an accurate idea about my target audience. The trends that I saw was that a lot of films which have one or a group of racists in them, are usually more aimed at people on the left wing of the political spectrum because left wing people tend to show a greater interest in political films. As many mockumentaries are political, they are often more suitable for people on the left wing of the political spectrum.

As with Borat, and many other mockumentaries, Yougov reveal that fans of the mockumentary genre tend to be quite left wing, which I predicted because they are usually political, like Borat.

The reason I decided to set my mockumentary in a secondary school is that I wanted to move away from the trend of mockumentaries focussing on right-wing people who they attempt to show up. Instead, I will be playing on stereotypes of teachers, who tend to be left-wing.  I hope that I will be able to parody in a successful way without making my trailer appear right-wing.

I intend to have a reasonably wide target audience for my film.  However, the main demographic will probably be left-wing as I hope to add some political moments in the trailer. Because I study in a largely boys’ school, the characters will be mainly male, which might mean the target audience is focussed upon men.  In terms of age I will focus on young, school-age people primarily because this will reflect most of the characters in the trailer. However, other comedies set in schools such as Bad Education have wide audiences in terms of age because the humour is still relevant across age-groups.

The reason I decided to set my mockumentary in a secondary school is that I wanted to move away from the trend of mockumentaries focussing on right-wing people who they attempt to show up. Instead, I will be playing on stereotypes of teachers, who tend to be left-wing.  I hope that I will be able to parody in a successful way without making my trailer appear right-wing.

I intend to have a reasonably wide target audience for my film.  However, the main demographic will probably be left-wing as I hope to add some political moments in the trailer. Because I study in a largely boys’ school, the characters will be mainly male, which might mean the target audience is focussed upon men.  In terms of age I will focus on young, school-age people primarily because this will reflect most of the characters in the trailer. However, other comedies set in schools such as Bad Education have wide audiences in terms of age because the humour is still relevant across age-groups.