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Where Fact Meets Fiction

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Where Fact Meets Fiction University of Otago Where Fact Meets Fiction - The Science Mockumentary Peter Naik A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science Communication Centre for Science Communication, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand 20 December 2018 Abstract Mockumentary is a style of film that has existed since 1957, at the latest. A fictional news piece from the BBC told the story about the annual spaghetti harvest occurring in Switzerland. Presented in the style of a typical news piece, this parody went on to fool many viewers. From these humble beginnings, mockumentary (as a genre of film) has since taken a place on the world stage. Mockumentaries such as This is Spinal Tap (1984); Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006); and Summer Heights High (2007) have proved the efficiency and popularity of this film form. Despite this popularity, there is a noticeable gap in the coverage of scientific subjects. This is especially noticeable when comparing the 3.8% of mockumentaries covering scientific subjects, with the 23.2% of documentaries that communicate science. This lack of science communication in mockumentary is something that could be changed in future filmmaking efforts, as mockumentary holds certain elements that are beneficial to science communication. The inherent humour, parody, and story elements in mockumentary all have the potential to greatly benefit science communication, as long as potential drawbacks are considered. Namely the risks of the audience missing the point, criticism of ‘tricking’ the viewers, and the reliability of the information. These elements of mockumentary are shown to be beneficial to science communication (with the careful consideration of the potential drawbacks) through the creative component of this thesis, a scientific mockumentary Kiwis Against Birds. Kiwis Against Birds follows Richard Duncan, the founder of a non-profit, community led organisation ‘Kiwis Against Birds’. Richard is attempting to bring more young people into ‘Kiwis Against Birds’, and enlists the help of some friends to help teach these young adults how to get rid of all of the birds. Kiwis Against Birds utilises humour, parody, and story to communicate science on how habitat destruction/degradation, irresponsible cat ownership, and commercial fisheries can negatively impact native bird populations. Kiwis Against Birds illustrates the potential of using mockumentary to communicate science. i Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank Ross Johnston for supporting me with my initial thoughts to create a science mockumentary. I had doubts at the beginning on the scientific integrity of this form, and without his support at this stage I would never have successfully completed this film, or the research in this area. Without my academic supervisor, Nancy Longnecker, I would not have finished the academic component of this thesis. Nancy helped me a great deal and I am very thankful for her support and guidance. Neil Harraway assisted the creation of Kiwis Against Birds a great deal, and his support and guidance has been crucial to the successful completion of this film. Thanks must also be given to Robert Brown for his excellent instruction in camera technique, and to Sue Harvey and Steve Ting for their help in many crucial areas over the last 2 years. I am forever grateful to Marlon Richards for all the time and effort he has put invested in Kiwis Against Birds, as well as all the friends and family that have supported me in many different ways through the creation of this thesis. Finally, I would like to give thanks to my classmates with whom I have shared this journey with. Their help and support has been crucial through the last two years. ii Table of Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Table of Contents iii List of Figures v Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1 - The Current State of Mockumentary 2 Mockumentary Through History 2 What is Mockumentary? 2 Notable Mockumentaries 4 Mockumentary vs. Documentary 6 Representation of Truth 6 Modes of Mockumentary 7 Shared Conventions 10 Contrasting Features 12 Docudrama 13 Science Communication 13 The Scientific Mockumentary 13 Under Representation 14 CHAPTER 2 - Science Communication in Mockumentary 17 Benefits 17 Humour 17 Parody 18 Story 20 Drawbacks 21 Missing the Point 21 Tricking Viewers 23 Reliability 24 Chapter 3 - Kiwis Against Birds 26 Pre-Production 26 Story 27 Science 28 Casting 33 Location 35 iii Equipment 36 Production 37 Wellington Based Filming 37 Dunedin Based Filming 38 Supplementary Footage 39 Post-Production 39 Editing 39 Rough-Cut 39 Music 40 CHAPTER 4 - Science Communication in Kiwis Against Birds 41 Utilising the Benefits 41 Humour 41 Parody 43 Story 44 Dealing with the Drawbacks 45 Missing the Point 45 Tricking Viewers 46 Reliability 47 Future Suggestions 49 Revisiting Kiwis against Birds 49 Future of the Scientific Mockumentary 49 References 51 iv List of Figures Figure 1.1: Categorisation of Documentary Sub-genres 15 Figure 1.2: Categorisation of Mockumentary Sub-genres 15 Figure 3.1: Marlon Richards as Richard Duncan in Kiwis Against Birds 33 Figure 3.2: Giles Zephyr-Bollinger as Guy Gileson in Kiwis Against Birds 34 Figure 3.3: Jamie Owers as Owen James in Kiwis Against Birds 35 Figure 3.4: Logic Pro file for Kiwis Against Birds music 40 v Introduction What do you think of when you hear the word mockumentary? Fans of Australian comedy might think of the television series Summer Heights High (2007). New Zealand film fans might think of the film What We Do in the Shadows (2014). Musicians may think of This is Spinal Tap (1984). Fans of pop culture may think of Borat! (2006) or Bruno (2009). However, there is one style of mockumentary that is very rarely thought of or discussed. This is the science mockumentary. Very few mockumentaries have been made with the intention of communicating science. 3.8% of mockumentaries are primarily scientific in nature, whereas 23.2% of documentaries are. This leads to the assumption that either mockumentary is not a good form of film to communicate science, or its benefits have not been fully realised yet. I believe that the latter is true, and in this thesis I intend to show how useful mockumentary can be in communicating science. Chapter 1 will examine what a mockumentary is. This includes looking at the origin and evolution of mockumentary, the similarities and differences with documentary and docudrama, and the underrepresentation of science in mockumentaries. Chapter 2 will explore the benefits that mockumentary will bring to science communication, through the inherent elements that remain consistent through most, if not all mockumentaries. Here the potential shortcomings will also be discussed. Chapter 3 will look at my creative component, a 25-minute scientific mockumentary titled Kiwis Against Birds. I will break down the pre-production, production, and post-production stages, while justifying the creative decisions that I have made. Chapter 4 will bring the previous chapters together, looking at how Kiwis Against Birds has utilised the benefits, and dealt with these potential shortcomings. I will briefly examine what I would do differently if I were to remake Kiwis Against Birds, and leave some suggestions for future scientific mockumentary filmmakers. 1 CHAPTER 1 - The Current State of Mockumentary Mockumentary Through History What is Mockumentary? While mockumentary is currently a popular genre of film, it is one that has received relatively little attention in the literature. Certain texts on mockumentary contain a large amount of the available information (Roscoe & Hight, 2001; Miller, 2012). However, as will be discussed in later sections, these texts do not discuss the existence and use of the science mockumentary. This thesis will aim to fill the gap on where the science mockumentary sits among this genre of film. Before discussing what exactly a mockumentary is, it is important to note that this form only exists because of documentary. Defining documentary is not easy, and Nichols (2017) dedicates the entire first chapter of Introduction to Documentary to the task. Even here, Nichols notes that there is no universally agreed upon definition of the form. He does however note three aspects of documentary that I will be using to define documentary films throughout this thesis. These are that documentaries are about reality; they are about real people; and they are told in the real world. Of course there is always a creative licence due to the nature of filmmaking, but these three elements tell us what to expect when we encounter a documentary – a marriage between the creativity of filmmaking, and the reality of the subjects. Documentary is a popular style of film, and was of course the pre-cursor to the creation of mockumentary. The term mockumentary was popularised in the 1980s with the release of This is Spinal Tap (1984), a mockumentary that has been cited by many mockumentary filmmakers as a key influence (Roscoe & Hight, 2001; Campbell, 2017). This is Spinal Tap is a parody of rockumentaries - documentaries focused on rock bands. The term rockumentary was a phrase used before the creation of This is Spinal Tap, and this existing term may have helped with the conception of the term “mockumentary”. In a promotional interview on March 20, 1984, Paul Schaffer (a musician, and actor in the film) described This is Spinal Tap - “It’s a parody of a rock documentary - it’s a rockumentary, it’s a mockumentary. 2 It’s a rocku-mocku-documentary.” The term “mockumentary” seems to have been created due to its rhyming, and similar nature to the term “documentary”. given the inherent humorous nature of mockumentary, I find this term to be very fitting. As with documentary, there is no universally agreed upon definition of mockumentary; exactly what falls under the umbrella of ‘mockumentary’ is not always clear.
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