I sat on my original project proposal idea for about a week and a half then decided it wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore. I wanted to do something more out of my comfort zone and more interesting to make. I spent a few days sitting on what I wanted to make and how I wanted to make it. I decided to start writing a script, which I then deleted and rewrote plenty of times. The script I originally came up with, I just didn’t have enough time to shoot and edit so I had to come up with an idea that was simple and effective. I wanted to make a mockumentary about a cult. I wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea at first but after planning things out carefully, I had a slight idea.
A mockumentary or docu-comedy is a type of movie or television show about fictional events but presented as a documentary. Many mockumentaries are comedies about the fictional event which is deemed funny by audiences as it’s about a serious but fictional topic.
For example, tv series and films such as The Office and What We Do in the Shadows are two types of mockumentaries that are both very different from one another. I wanted to incorporate elements from What We Do in the Shadows into my work as the film topic is from a horror background.
Before I started shooting any footage for my mockumentary, I had to come up with the storyline, characters, props etc. First of all, I cast my family members as the characters within my mockumentary. This allowed the whole character development to be shortened by a whole lot and move me forward in my action plan. I decided to cast the characters first before writing my storyline, this was only so I could get an idea of what I could do with this idea I had.
Pairing a mockumentary about a cult and including your family is just not easy at all. I couldn’t be too serious with the topic nor could I be too immature about it. After a while of brainstorming and researching, I came across a 10th-century Slavic cult. I’d never looked into Slavic Mythology so thankfully, the time I decided too helped me out a lot. The cult was named, ‘The Cult Of The Trees’, It was one of the oldest traditions in Slavic worshipping. The ritual was practised to honour life and death.
“The Slavs back then worshiped trees that had ties with some form of deity in them. The prayed to them, made sacrifices and even went in confession in front of the roots with a silent whisper. It was considered that every year the tree dies and comes back to life, symbolising the cycle of life and cosmic rebirth.” – Slavorum.org
It was also mentioned in the research I did, that certain trees meant certain things and certain roles within the group gave you a type of authority. Grabbing certain elements from this existing cult, it allowed me to develop my ideas about my own cult and change certain things so that they weren’t the same. By doing this, It gave me a creative edge but also allowed me to use actual information on a factual topic which I could then make fictional by changing certain elements.
The link below is to my new and updated project proposal as well as my new and updated action plan.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10qTDnKxJt1FSZS5Sho3LpezGR9HORGpNhXQzt7vvzkg/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18JbzFmM_KP_oqT8WvLN80ixMWBGU_bWwnYYO9Ak2nHQ/edit?usp=sharing
El's Final Major Project Blog 