Fly on the wall filming

I'm writing a mockumentary/spoof fly-on-the-wall thing and I've realised that I don't know enough nuts and bolts to do it properly. What I need to know is this: how are these fly on the wall docs filmed? What kind of crew would there be on a non-spoof TV doc where the camera follows a guy around? Who does all the off-camera directorial stuff? Not necessarily direction, but presumably it is not the cameraman who prompts the subject to talk about this or that for the camera.

Wow, just writing this post is showing me how ignorant I am. I thought I could just launch in and write but there's so much technical stuff. Any websites or books you know about that show behind the scenes at one of these productions, please let me know.

Moving to Writers' Discussion.

Certainly sounds like a hard one. I'll maybe move this to writers discussion for them to help you there. The mod may move it back if he feels you'll get more help here.

Quote: Aaron @ February 16 2009, 3:57 PM GMT

Moving to Writers' Discussion.

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Beat me to it.

Surely, you've seen some of those documentaries. (the real ones)

Usually, the documentaries look as if they're just simply following the subject(s) about.

Also, they look poorly edited and amateur.

And most MOCKumentaries have the subjects doing something embarrassing and then say "don't use that" where obviously they do.
Also, they have lots of "subjects hands covering camera lens" embarressing bits.

If you want to see how a mockumentary should be done, watch the two Comic Strip Presents films: "Bad News Tour" and "More Bad News." where a film crew follows around a rock band.

Media student here who's had lectures by people who've done this kinda thing* and well... it varies a bit, but often its a fairly small crew.

Generally you'd expect to see a cameraman, sound guy (with boom), director/producer (Who'll be the one asking questions and coaxing info if there's not any on-screen talent) and sometimes an Assistant (Who would record what's being filmed & help organise - if not Director does it)

If a show needs two cameras the director seems to commonly operate the second (Assuming there in the same location) and they might use a camera mounted mic and wireless tie-mics on the main subjects rather then the boom.

For further help watch a couple of shows similar to what you're making and see what crew they credit. Then make it up a bit, no-one will care.

*best story - when the Producer/director had to spend a night sleeping on a very small, very uncomfortable, smoke smelling couch to get shots of a devil child misbehaving at night. He hardly got any sleep due to the couch and constantly having to grab his camera to film yelling kid, and was woken early morning by said child jumping on him and then his <i>camera</i>...

Hennell - that's great. Yeah, I will make it up but I suddenly realised I needed to know what was going on behind the camera, if that's where I am as the writer (if you know what I mean). Thanks for the info.

Mikey - you rarely get to see the whole crew in these things, which is why I'm asking. Plus I really am ignorant.

Cheers.

As someone who is just actually going through this filming process at the moment I can say that we have a cameraman who doubles as a soundman and a director with a little screen deciding the the make up of the shots. At night they had a camera mounted on the curtain rail.