Mockumentary

In practice

A mockumentary is a fictional film or series made to look like a documentary. It borrows the documentary's tools, such as handheld camera, interviews, archive footage and a crew that seems to follow real events, and uses them to tell an invented story, usually a comedy. This Is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, The Office and What We Do in the Shadows are classic examples.

The joke usually comes from the gap between how people present themselves and what the camera catches. In a talking-head interview, a character explains how respected they are; the next shot shows them failing. Characters glance at the lens when something awkward happens, as if sharing a look with the audience. The form makes the audience feel like insiders watching people who do not quite know how they come across.

The word blends "mock" and "documentary." It dates from the 1960s and caught on when Rob Reiner used it in interviews about This Is Spinal Tap (1984). Not every mockumentary is a comedy: some horror films and dramas use the same style to make invented events feel real. When the style is used to deceive the audience rather than to entertain them knowingly, it is closer to a hoax.

A mockumentary scene with a talking head

The mockumentary's engine is all here: a character speaking to the crew, a claim about himself, and a picture that contradicts it in the same frame. The price sticker and the ducking employees do the joke, so the dialogue can stay sincere. The parenthetical (to camera) tells the reader this is an interview, a convention that mockumentary scripts use constantly.

How a mockumentary works

A mockumentary presents itself as a record of real events. The camera is often handheld, zooms clumsily, and appears to catch moments by accident. Characters are interviewed in talking-head shots, alone and looking near the lens, and the edit cuts between what they claim and what actually happens. Some films add archive footage, news clips or on-screen titles to complete the illusion.

Within the story, a crew exists, even when it is never seen. That changes how characters behave. They perform for the camera, try to hide things from it and sometimes speak to it directly. A look at the lens after something embarrassing is the form's signature gesture, inviting the audience to share the character's mortification or disbelief.

Many mockumentaries are partly improvised. Christopher Guest's films, such as Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, were shot from detailed outlines with dialogue invented by the actors, then shaped in the edit. Television mockumentaries usually have full scripts but leave room for small improvisations that keep the documentary feel.

Mockumentary examples in film and TV

Film: Woody Allen's Zelig (1983), Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap (1984), about a British heavy metal band past its prime, Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, the Belgian dark comedy Man Bites Dog (1992), Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat (2006), and What We Do in the Shadows (2014), about vampire roommates in New Zealand.

Television: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's The Office (2001) and its American remake (2005), Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, Trailer Park Boys, Summer Heights High, People Just Do Nothing, the What We Do in the Shadows series and Abbott Elementary. Documentary-style sitcoms have become one of the main forms of modern TV comedy.

Outside comedy, horror has used the documentary look to frighten. The Blair Witch Project (1999) is presented as footage found after its makers disappeared, and many found-footage films followed. Peter Watkins's The War Game (1965) used documentary techniques to show what a nuclear attack on Britain would look like. These films share the style, if not the jokes.

Mockumentary vs. documentary, docudrama and found footage

A documentary records real people and events. A mockumentary invents them and imitates the documentary's look. A docudrama, by contrast, dramatizes real events with actors and makes no claim to be footage of them. Some films blur these lines on purpose, mixing real people into a staged story, as Borat does with unwitting members of the public.

Found footage is a related style in which the film claims to be recordings made by its characters, usually discovered after something went wrong. It is most common in horror. A mockumentary usually implies a professional crew making a film; found footage implies amateurs who never meant anyone to see it. Both rely on the audience accepting that the camera is part of the world.

How to write a mockumentary

Decide why the crew is there. A documentary needs a subject: a band's comeback tour, a dog show, an office that is about to be downsized, a school with no money. The premise gives characters a reason to be filmed and a goal that the camera can follow. It also gives the story its natural shape, building toward the event the documentary was made about.

Write the gap. Pair each claim in an interview with a scene that undercuts it, and let characters reveal themselves by what they try to hide from the camera. Keep the talking heads short, usually a line or two, and use them to set up or punch a joke rather than to explain the plot.

Format it clearly. Mockumentary scripts usually mark interviews with a scene heading such as INT. OFFICE - DAY (INTERVIEW) or with a parenthetical like (to camera), and describe camera behavior only when it is the joke: "The camera catches her pocketing the stapler." Plot's screenplay elements handle these headings and parentheticals like any other, so the conventions stay consistent from page one.