Planning

Scripting

Scripting was the first task and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. From my concept, I was able to quickly think of some ideas for what I wanted to do. I took a lot of inspiration from Comic Book The Movie in particular, admittedly too much, but I felt like I was able to utilize the concept of it effectively into making it it's own thing.

Space and starry background, narration with edits that match what is being said.

Em: Before we start, the featured events featured disclaimer. A disclaimer that disclaims all dis claims. Things like, the graphic nature of the featured events featured splatfest, featured guests such as nerds and one Italian, featuring dante from the devil may cry series. It’ll be here soon, here it comes…

As this is said, the background slows down and blurs out. The disclaimer goes across the screen, too fast to be read. It reads “This film features naughty words” over and over. While that scrolls across the screen, the following is said in reverse, sped up to meet the end of the disclaimer. This whole sequence should take place during a quarter to a third of a second (15-20 frames if 60fps)

mE: Buy our merchandise.

To start off, a lot of the disclaimers I've seen for Mockumentaries are never serious. I think I took that to an extremity with this one. Repeated use of "disclaimer" and "featured" are meant to drill these points into the ground. "Disclaimer" emphasises the hugeness of the disclaimer, while "Featured" is a mockery of how other films tell you contents beforehand, like guests and what's coming up instead of just waiting for the natural progression and just the general overuse of it. "Splatfest" is used because it references the game Splatoon, which the audience should hopefully understand if they were to fit under the target category, a lot of terms I use in this are, but the reason it creates humour is because Splatoon is one of the most non-violent shooters out there, contrasting "graphic nature". "Featuring Dante from The Devil May Cry series" is also intended to be humorous as it's a reference to the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. On the box art for the release of one of the UK games, a seal with that on was placed on it but due to Dante's trivial role in the game, it became a target for mockery. I use it here because it's one of the more noticeable jokes in gaming culture, which is the largest area I cover during this opening. The "Buy our merchandise" part of it is meant to emphasise how little the disclaimer actually meant and parody the overuse of subliminal messages in the medium.

Cut to a mid shot of Drake walking in and talking directly to the camera in his room.

Drake: Hello there, my name is Drake, anime watcher, competitive gamer, just general fantasy world enthusiast.

Cut to still images relevant to what Drake's talking about.

I grew up around fictional realms, with cartoons early in the morning, my family introducing me to comic books and receiving my first game when I was 6, that being Pokemon Emerald for the GameBoy Advance.

Cut back to the mid shot showing the game being turned on.

It’s so gratifying to take my old cartridge, turn it on and hear that music. Nostalgic.

As shown here, I put very little info about the camerawork in the script, namely because I felt that it'd be limiting when I came to storyboarding. It's a personal thing, but I feel I should make note of it. The introduction of Drake however is something I wanted to make a big deal about, due to the fact Drake is the one the mockumentary would be designed around, which is why his introduction is the first thing I set in stone. I knew however that I didn't want every shot to be live-action, due to how little movement and story telling is done here, along with how it goes against what the genre wants. That's why I decided to add still images because they get the point across of how Drake grew up. I chose Pokémon Emerald as his first game because it was my first game and as such, I understood that you could get nostalgic feelings from it, especially from the soundtrack.

Crabs and pans of the room

Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards, shows like Eliot Kid, comics like Horrid Henry, games like Sonic, all these made up my early years and brought me to where I am now, where I’m still enjoying all these forms of entertainment. I’ve got into bigger games like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona and started taking these to more competitive levels with games like Street Fighter and Blazblue. I’m watching anime with themes I could never dream of as a kid like Erased, Panty & Stocking and Gatchaman. Go, Bird!

Even the music I listen to take these elements with vocaloids rising in popularity. Some people would call these weird, and I get that, but these are a part of who I am, where I came from, and who a lot of other people are.

The crab and pan is meant to just pad out the paragraph. I wouldn't want to run the risk of boring the audience with footage they may have seen from their respective shows/games, so I decided to include a showcase of the room due to how much I can show off. It'd also give me a chance to include camera movement options I probably wouldn't have otherwise. The mentioned franchises (Eliot Kid, Yu--Gi-Oh, Persona, etc), all of them have influenced my life personally in some way or another. To say at this point Drake wasn't inspired by myself would be lying, so I used these because I knew if Drake was like me, this could've made him who he is today. The use of "Go, Bird!" at the end of the paragraph is a reference to Gatchaman, as it's the dialogue used to transform in the show. I'm also going to have the hand movement for the transformation here so it show the impact the show had on Drake. With the Vocaloids, I'm thinking of having actual Vocaloid music videos or live concerts as the footage to show the scale of them.

Rabbid: Gaming for me is a big part of my life. Not just because I enjoy it, but because I enjoyed it so much as a kid that it’s my job now. A lot of passion goes a long way. One minute, you’re playing Wind Waker on the gamecube and the next, you’re out there saving the countdown community. It isn’t easy being the most popular man on this part of the internet but hey, someone has to do it.

Giovanni: (Speaking Italian, subtitles over read) Anime is the best thing ever, everyone should watch it. It’s changed my life from being average into above average. People need to just watch it, it’s a crime not to. Seriously, my dad works in the force and I’ll get him to arrest you if you don’t.

These are going to be introduced as special guests to emphasise how fictional works influence people. However, each of these is going to either say something odd or be presented in a way that isn't normal. Eg, the Rabbid one is not the actual well known Rabbid, I'm going to get someone who sounds vaguely similar to him. Giovanni speaks in Italian, however, the subtitles don't match what he says. What they do mean however, is that "You're asking me to speak Italian, when I consider English the better language?" which creates humor, in and of itself. Both of these shots are likely going to be midshots but they may not, I haven't decided. I might also add a third one of these too this to have a rule of three going on.

Drake: And there’s many more out there who have been infected by non-reality. They’ve grown up with stuff like this and are still experiencing and enjoying them today, to the point where jobs are a thought of the past, because their living is in-front of them. Right now, I’m playing one of the games that I’ve spent way too many hours to admit on it, Super Smash Bros for Wii U.

(Improvise into a failure)

(Do the same for some fighting game)

(Do the same for Undertale)

(Eventually just watch One piece)

With this sequence, the idea was meant to be that Drake wanted to show off his skills and just couldn't, constantly looking like he was playing something to an impressive degree but actually playing quite poorly. The games I'd chose for this, Smash Bros, another fighting game and Undertale, all have clear difficult points in them where it could be easily reached and embarrassing for Drake, those being ranked matches in the first two and the Sans fight in Undertale. Switching to One Piece, an anime, was meant to just show him giving up. The word choice, "infected", was meant to make the culture ironically sound parasitic and as if it was something you wouldn't want to be a part of.

Maybe I do spend to much time doing this stuff. I guess that’s what we call a Virtual World Problem? Oh my god, I just figured out the title for this, I am a genius.

Cameraman: We already had one.

Drake: But mine is better.

Cameraman: With all due respect…

Drake: With all due respect I hired you and can fire you at any point. So can I have my damn title sequence? …oh I haven’t rendered it. Stop filming!

This was a rough version of the dialogue I intended to show here with an interaction between Drake and Cameraman. The impression I wanted to get from this was the Drake didn't like the Cameracrew because they stuck to what you should in a film, what was decided before, where Drake wants to just change things throughout. I would want this if it was a full length film become a reoccurring gag throughout the film, that he would argue with a cameraman, replace them, repeat throughout the film. The idea with the camerawork I was thinking here was to have it have a similar shot to whatever was before, but for Drake to make the shot look wrong by coming up close so the viewer wouldn't see much, only hear.

Title sequence starts. Montage intro-ish, with a little bit of length to it. The music is “Uncontrollable” from Xenoblade Chronicles X. Clip of game, reaction, game, reaction, etc. As they appear, the titles appear and eventually culminate in the title.

For the title sequence, I wanted to make it look bad. Like, really bad, by doing a cliched montage intro seen in amateurish videos on fictional works, see example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gtj6dhKuIM (Time frame 0:00 - 0:42) Inconsistent video quality, seemingly random and bland transitions, goes on for too long, dull font, etc. I'd obviously make it look better than that, like syncing clip changes with the music, etc. The song, Uncontrollable, I chose because of it's chorus having very distinct start and end points, meaning I couldn't cut it up until it had gone on for too long and as a lyrical track, had very distinct points to transition. https://youtu.be/cgudF-hVlDA?t=1m9s Eventually, the titles would appear and then it'd fade to black.

Casting 

Narrator: The narrator at the start I had a person in mind for immediately, someone with the ability to have a voice that could sound soft yet a little monotone, could build something up to sound more amazing than it actually is. This is why I got my friend Em Stjernberg to help out.

Drake: Like I said before, Drake is heavily inspired by myself, so I thought casting myself as him would be fine. Since Drake is the main character, I knew that he'd be the character we'd need the most for filming and the easiest way to guarantee that is to be the one who is needed. That being said, I also have the looks for Drake, looking permanently tired, overly long hair, etc.

Rabbid: For Rabbid, I wanted someone who sounded like the real RabbidLuigi, which I'll put a link to here (https://www.youtube.com/user/rabbidluigi), but I wanted to make a small adjustment. I wanted him to sound so condescending, and my friend Will Barringer was just the guy to ask. As someone who was familiar with the same community Rabbid is from, he knew the personality quite well, but he could make it sound so much more empowered like he was on his high-horse, and that's why I asked him.

Giovanni: Giovanni's character I wanted to speak fluent Italian, so my first instinct was to have a native speaker, and the best one I knew I could get a hold of was my friend Tommaso Fatichi. I could've probably taught another one of my friends the phrases, but it runs the risk of sounding disjointed and with someone fluent in the language, it allows me to pull somewhat of a joke. What I told Tommaso was to say anything in Italian for a length of time, but I didn't tell him what. As such, what he says will be different from the subtitles placed over him, creating humour there.

Cameraman: For the cameraman, they wouldn't be filming most of it, rather being a voice behind the camera. However, I did want people who could be available at almost any time, incase I did need assistance but mainly, I needed them to either be a voice behind the camera and potentially the third guest. This is why I asked my friends Aimee Reid and Sasha Dunn, because when one wasn't available, the other likely was. This meant I constantly had one of them to assist me, and they both could play characters with rather timid voices, which is what I needed from the Cameraman.

Storyboarding 

With the storyboards, all of which will be attached here, I started thinking about every shot and drew how I envisioned them. All text is written out on the "Storyboard Images" entry to the blog so you know what it says if it's unreadable here. (Key: Page Number - Shot Number)

1-1: For the disclaimer, I felt a black background would be to boring, yet a starry background has a similar effect but is more interesting and dynamic.

1-2: With the emergence of "Disclaimer", I wanted it to be big, yet not too big, which is why I later decided to remove the angelic effect and just have it rise during the "Here it comes...". The glitchy-ness and repeated text is meant to throw the viewer of, to create a shot where re-watching it reveals new things which while not relevant to the story, provide humorous effect. On their second watch, they may read the text, which is rather underwhelming for the build-up. However, upon a third or fourth, they may take it upon themselves to reverse the audio to here the subliminal message parody, providing more humor due to how it's so unsubtle yet they didn't hear it earlier.

1-3: This shot was done to give more of an introductory feel to the introduction, as repetitive as that sounds. There was no real other reason for this sort of shot so be done.

1-4: The use of still images instead of live-action is to give the implication of this being something from the past, and adding a hint of diversity. While I later went on to replace the intro of Emerald with just the boxart, the fact these were what was shown show the importance to Drake.

1-5: Here I wanted the effect that it focused on the game when it's audio becomes important. However, due to how everything had to be shot, it was too far away, so zooming through editing proved a bit of a problem. What it did allow however, is to hear that music, or at least part of it that makes it memorable, what a lot of kids who grew up in the 2000's will remember.

1-6: The idea with the non-set transitions is that I didn't need to set shot length. I could just let them flow naturally into one another. Other concepts for the next few shots include Yu-Gi-Oh collection showcasing a table covered in cards and a duel disk and watching an anime while showing the reaction with a panning camera.

2-1: Viewing the amiibo collection shows just how dedicated Drake is to his games, along with the boxes full of dvd's in the back showing his films. The idea with this was to signify how important media is to him, and show his enthusiasm for them. The crab shot reveals is over a period of time and the amount of amiibo in particular shows this to a bigger degree.

2-2: The pedestal shot here has the same effect, this time with TV showing anime even when he's distinctly not watching it as well as his video game consoles. The amount of them shown is above what is considered a normal amount, showcasing a bit of an obsessive nature.

2-3: Same effect as previous two, this time with video game collection, some DVD's, and any memorabilia of games he has.

2-4: The praying is meant to look important, but not reveal what he's praying to. This is revealed in the next shot with quite a comedic fashion.

2-6: We see he's praying to "Haruhi Suzumiya", a fictional character who is considered to god of the universe in the anime she is from. As such, Drake is praying to a fictional deity, and humor is caused because of it.

3-1: The Gatchaman hand action is from when a Gatchaman powers up during the show, meaning it's a symbol of it. As such, imitation of it shows a liking towards the show. The Vocaloid song at this point isn't decided, which if I don't choose one, I'll use a Gatchaman song most likely.

3-2: Each Vocaloid video is distinct in style, and I can show how popular they are nowadays because of the live performances, eg. David Letterman show.

3-3: This is meant to be a way to transition into the special guests, people I consider including are just influential figures in fictional media, like Hayao Miyazaki, Hideo Kojima, etc. The music I changed to keeping later on because I felt the special guest bits would be too bland without.

3-4: Rabbid speaks at a midshot away from the camera, as specified earlier. Nothing much to say about this other than the transition changed to something else because I felt it was more varied.

3-5: Nothing much to say about this either, transition was changed for same reason.

3-6: At this point, I decided on the third special guest, to be the obscene one, a piece of software that moves in accordance to the user, that can appear as whatever you want it to. It would create humor due to how random it is.

From here, every last one of these shots gets cut, so I'll explain my thoughts for each originally.

4-1,2,3,4 & 5: This section is entire improvised. The first four share the same shot, as it can be used to show that he's trying to hide the fact he's having to refilm each thing. The fifth one when Drake gets annoyed at the cameraman, can be handheld as long as it carry's on from the previous shot.

4-6: The montage intro is commonly used with video countdowns, and is synonymous for being overly long and I wanted to have a parody of that. Needless to say, the reason I cut it is because it would've dragged on and been awful to watch. The choice of Xenoblade's "Uncontrollable", came down to the fact the chorus is in the perfect frame of being too long between 30-40 seconds.

5-1: I wanted the title to be the last thing the viewer saw so it showed climax to the intro, but how I wanted it I still was on the fence about. I did have a general idea of having it fade out afterwards.

Filming

Filming took longer than expected. First off, the camera I borrowed from the school was broken, which I didn't know till I got home, so Aimee lent me hers. However, this consumed batteries like a mad thing, so it was quite costly.

After speaking to people and finding out who I could get onboard, I first got the footage for the special guests. This is because they were relatively small clips and didn't need much variation to them. However, the FaceRigDog one couldn't be filmed because of the requirement to get my friend on Skype with screen capture software and like any piece of tech, something had to go wrong. The facecam broke so FaceRig couldn't recognize Josh's face. so I needed to come up with a substitute, I'll get onto that later.

The second filming session covering the bulk of everything went rather smoothly. Almost everything in the original storyboard was filmed then and there. However, there was an alarming problem that came up right there was that the camera naturally darkened everything. This meant that all the footage filmed that day was unrecognizable. This also wasted quite a few batteries, so for the next filming session, I borrowed a working camera from the school. This camera had the problem of having a natural zoom, which made things problematic but I could film everything in a lighter environment, where it was recognizable. Once again, I managed to refilm everything but without the last scene. However, once again, there was a problem. This camera produced files incompatible with my editing software, so I needed to refilm with the first camera, but it was getting late so when I did I had to change the environment again. This time, internal lighting was turned on which produced a problem of not showing much different with the ritual scene but I didn't refilm that. I didn't refilm a lot here due to my decision about the ending session. I felt the last scene and the montage intro would've been quite grating without making much progress, the joke would've got old so I decided to change the ending their and then, after I refilmed everything.

What I mentioned before about a substitute guest came into effect now I didn't need Cameraman's character, but I wanted someone with similar effect, so Sharla became the third guest, played by Cameraman. I wanted the conversation to have similar implications to the first one, so I wanted to find a franchise unmentioned before hand where Drake could imply he hated it. This led to Harry Potter being mentioned.

Additional Footage Hunting

Additional Footage was important to the intro, considering how minimalist the footage filmed live was. I'll make a list of each clip used, where it was from and why it was used:

• "Wii U - Splatoon Squid Kid TV Commercial" - This was used to go alongside Splatfest, to have a visual side to the joke.
• "South Park Intro" - This was used for background visual effect while Drake was talking, to make it look more interesting.
• All photo's - These were all featured to emphasize a point at the time.
• "Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Trailer" - To produce irony as it would play when talking about Pokemon.
• "RWBY Volume 2 Opening" & "Super Mario Maker" - To provide visual difference in the panning.
• "Xenoblade Chronicles", "Persona 4 Dancing All Night", "Street Fighter V", "Blazblue", "Death Parade", "Erased", "Panty & Stocking" & "Gatchaman Crowds" - To provide visual cues when mentioning the names, since I'd ran out of room to show and because the ritual scene was impossible in the current lighting.
• "Reikenzan" - Visuals in the background.
• "Vocaloids" - To distinctly show how odd they are when talking about music.
• "Hyrule Warriors Trailer" & "Fire Emblem Awakening cutscene" - To transition from Vocaloids.
• "A Talking Cat!?! - Jontron", "Q&A #1 - MasterJakeStudios", "Sleep Fighter - RocketJump", "Sequelitis - MegaMan Classic VS MegaMan X - Egoraptor", "Zero Difficulty (The Jimquisition), "Death By Glamour Acapella - SmoothMcGroove", "The Completionist Kicks Off 2016!", "Super Speed Update!! - Markiplier", "ProJared Intro", "Eastern Philosophers VS Western Philosophers - Epic Rap Battles of History", "Game Theory", "GrArkarda", "RWBY Chapter 1 Volume 1", "Uncontrollable Cover - Tsuko G", "Visiting Chuggaconroy - StephenVlog", "Undertale The Musical - RandomEncounters", "Peppermint Cream - NSP", "Anime in 2013 Part 1 - Gigguk", "Undertale - Dating Start - Jazz Cover - insanetherainmusic", "DigiTy", "ChallengersApproaching Intro", "Hugo Breaks Street Fighter - Maximillian Dood", "Ocarina of Time With Lyrics - BrentalFloss", "Drakeante Intro V2 - Myself" - All of these make up the collage at the end of the intro, each appearing in time with music.

The music also follows to this, the tracks being:

• "Verdanturf Town - Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire" Composers: Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose, Morikazu Aoki. Arrangers: Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose, Morikazu Aoki
• "Gatchaman ~ In The Name of Love" - Jin Aketagawa and Iwasaki Taku

Now all of these have been mentioned, it's now important to mention how the law is brought into this. As long as it isn't blatant plagiarism of works, the law allows for copyright to be overlooked in the name of parody, as long as it resides within fair dealing and I believe my work does. The film was not made with profit in mind, and does not achieve a profit for making it, and if it was to be completed the credit sequence at the end would contain every last borrowed reference thing, along with who created this. I wouldn't claim any of it as my own, or attempt to profit of of it. Futhermore, with educational undertones that may be brought up in any sort of documentary, the law protects the fair use of works with intention to educate, which then brings up, what would VWP educate people in? I believe if I went on to continue the product, beyond the opening, the relevance of media as a whole would be explored and you would reach a conclusion about the impact it makes, just in a vaguely mocking path to it. A humorous approach that abides by the law. To further give myself validation, I've not only studied copyright law to know whether this is fair, I will also upload the first draft to YouTube, which will immediately strike my account if it detects even a hint of copyrighted footage.

EDT: No strikes after upload, the product isn't breaking laws.