Documentary: Statement of Intent

 A Level Media Studies

Here justifies the statement of intent on our mockumentary, 'Dave(s).' This blog post is written by me (Sharon).

Our mockumentary, 'Dave(s),' concentrates on 6 high-schoolers who unintentionally share the same name, Dave. Therefore, a competition is to be set up on who deserves to claim/keep the name 'Dave.' This idea was inspired by the trending "Josh Fight" Twitter meme, where anyone named Josh was told to meet at specific coordinates to 'fight,' and whoever won got to keep their name (Josh) and everyone else had to change their name. As all Daves show diversity and variety in their personalities, attitudes, and interests, we conform to stereotypes and representations of different groups (of people) in a typical high school. For instance, a few include, Happy Dave represents the LGBTQ+ community, Player Dave represents a classic jock, and Muscle Dave represents a "gym rat." Through all these features, this mockumentary is able to build a comedic effect on the audience via the juxtaposition of how regardless of having the same name, they are all assorted in terms of personalities. This could assist in enlarging the target audience, mainly psychographically. Our demographic, however, is still fixated on those ages 15-25 (teenagers to young adults) who are avid users of social media (e.g. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok), and are knowledgeable of Gen-Z's rapidly evolving "meme culture."

With this mockumentary, we seek to experiment on and hence, include comedic and satirical effects that are implicitly funny, such that via each and every one of the Daves' 'absurd' behaviours during interviews or even the montages that illustrate their stupidity/humiliation. Through the interviews, the audience would be able to see how each of them live their high school lives, for example, by the interactions with other students, or how students interact with them.

As Gen-Z are technologically literate, we suppose it's best for this mockumentary to be distributed and showcased on YouTube, and/or Netflix. These streaming platforms are easy and simple to control/use for Gen-Zs, as well as those platforms can help distribute/recommend our mockumentary to other audiences (for example, through algorithms, and appropriately suggesting to other users' pages) that may also enjoy this product. Additionally, these platforms can ease giving reviews, posting comments, and most importantly, sharing (to other users, or other social media, e.g. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter). Therefore, audiences are able to build social relationships, as theorized by Blumler and Katz, via interactions with other users through these features available.

Self Reflection: This statement of intent helped my group by giving a sense of direction, guidance, and a plan throughout the time given for the production of this mockumentary, Dave(s). Such that the objective of making it to be implicitly funny via comedic/satirical effects, assists us with the screenplay (comedic lines - both implicitly and explicitly), camera angles during filming to further exaggerate and enhance the comedy, and the editing techniques as well as (diegetic/non-diegetic) sounds to be included (e.g. montages).