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Local production company releases SA’s first mockumentary series |
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Billed as South Africa’s first mockumentary series, Foto na Dans – Die Vloed, is scheduled to premiere on DStv channel MK next week. The five part series follows real-life, SAMA award-winning, rock band Foto na Dans into the studio for the recording of the band’s eagerly awaited third album. Band members play exaggerated versions of themselves in what is initially presented as an ordinary behind-the-scenes documentary. As the pressure mounts to create a best-selling album of international standards, however, things turn chaotic, with creative differences and writer’s block throwing the future of the band, not to mention the album, into uncertainty. According to Jacques Koudstaal, co-owner of Testify Films, the production company responsible for conceptualising and producing the series, a rock band provides the ideal platform for a mockumentary, given the conflict-ridden creative processes and stereotypical ‘big egos’ inevitably associated with the production of an album. “We were able to blur the lines between reality and fiction by incorporating real-life events into a fictitious plot, keeping the viewer guessing for most of the show,” said Jacques. Director Jaco Smit says that the band’s status as a serious player in the Afrikaans rock industry presented the opportunity to satirise the industry as a whole. “Because none of the band members is a professionally trained actor, it was important to allow room for improvisation in order to maintain a sense of realism. The result is a series of very funny, narcissistic monologues with absurd analogies that make for good comedy. The degree of authenticity in the performances of the band members leaves the viewer unsure of the appropriate reaction, in true mockumentary tradition.” The mockumentary genre is relatively new to the film industry, with the term only coined in the mid-1980s when director Rob Reiner used it to describe his film This Is Spinal Tap. Mockumentaries are often presented as historical documentaries with b roll and talking heads discussing past events or as cinéma vérité pieces that follow people as they perform various actions. The filmmakers reference Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat as a recent success but say that perhaps the most notable use of the mockumentary in the 2000s has been the British sitcom The Office, together with its various international offshoots, including American, French, German, French Canadian, Chilean and Brazilian versions. They say a South African version of The Office is rumoured to be in the works. Foto na Dans – Die Vloed will broadcast on music channel MK (DSTV 324) in five parts, from Monday 26 – 30 July 2010 just before 19:00. | |||
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