Documentary: Development

This post is written by me (Nayana) and includes everything of our development: ideas, storyboard, minor research

Names

We discussed the names and types of personalities we wanted to have for our mockumentary. We also specified what type of accessories we wanted them to wear to express more of themselves, and this is what we decided:

1. Muscle Dave - compression shirt
2. Creepy Dave - black hoodie
3. Softboy Dave - cardigan
4. Crypto Dave - nerdy glasses
5. Player Dave - varsity jacket
6. Happy Dave - pink hoodie
7. Not Dave - normal uniform

We used this to match their own stereotypes and to differentiate them. We are also still having them using our school uniform to accentuate them still being high school students.

Below is the description of each role:

1. Muscle Dave - a man full of ego whose personality is all based on just his muscle
2. Creepy Dave - a quiet person who doesn't talk and gives off a very unpleasant vibe
3. Softboy Dave - introverted and awkward but tries his best to be nice, highlighted his conventions of soft boy attire and most used app is Pinterest

Casts

These casts are respectively to our list of Daves above

1. Hanly
2. Baron
3. Taka
4. Danny
5. Davin
6. Giann
7. Juna

We canceled using Danny and having the character Crypto Dave due to schedule issues. Hence we changed the idea of Crypto Dave to Not Dave, played by Juna. Afterward we agreed this may be the best choice as we thought the character crypto Dave may not resonate as well and wouldn't be as funny. This was a very last-minute change so we were not as prepared for his scenes but fortunately, everything played out really well. 

Mockumentary Names

Before we decided on the name "Dave(s)" we had other name ideas for our mockumentary

• On the Daves
• Finding the Best Dave
• Dave War
• Daves
• Dave
• Diggin Dave
• Dave(s)

We decided to place the s in brackets as brackets are used to add additional information to existing statements. Adding the s inside the brackets shows that we knew/realized that all different people's names are Dave later on.

Shooting Location

We have a few ideas on where we want to record our shots

1. Everyone, every scene in one place
2. Everyone shoots at different places which correspond best to their personality
3. Just using 2 different locations

But all our scenes will be in school (Regents Secondary School) 

We decided to do the 3rd one where we will only use 2 different rooms, 1 room for all interviews and 1 room for their gathering part. Other locations will be used for minor scenes: Dave's picture, the first argument scene, and the montage for player Dave and not Dave. 

Typeface Research

Dave Fonts 

I made the slides for compiling all the ideas and fonts but we all discussed on which is the best.

We tried some fonts we wanted to use for our thumbnail and came up with these. We decided to go in a more classy direction with the typewriter-style fonts but we are still experimenting with which looks best for what we want to express.

By using typewriter fonts, it conveys a mock seriousness, especially as we are doing a mockumentary, we want to show that we are serious but still satirical. This type of font has also been used in other mockumentaries (sitcoms) that we researched such as The Office.

We chose the font Lumios Typewriter New to be our final choice. Next, we experimented on how we wanted to play with the capitals.

We liked the last Dave(s) best as we individually manipulated the spacing of each letter to make it equal to each other but we didn't really like how neat it looked so our teacher gave the idea to handwrite the (s). By handwriting the (s), it shows the audience how unprepared they were and how they had to go back to add more details afterward.

I tried to draw the (s) with an iPad in Canva and Procreate. We chose the color red as a red pen is what people traditionally use when marking documents and checking back work which also made it stand out more. I screen-recorded the writing process in case it will be used on the title screen of our opening, but this typeface will be used on our thumbnail as well.

Overall, the typeface was created by me (Nayana).

Thumbnail Development

Sharon drew the initial sketch for the thumbnails we brainstormed but we all discussed on which to be the final one. 

Here were some of the ideas we planned for our thumbnails, but in the end we decided to do the second one (top right). We chose this as we thought it would be the best representation of all Daves and have the title on it. 

Here we compiled all our ideas for the thumbnails, we experimented with using filters and shadows but in some, it didn't look as natural. Below is our final choice for the thumbnail.

This is the thumbnail I edited. I used the wall that was already in the picture and added shadow on the writing. We chose this one as it felt the most natural. We didn't like the ones where the background was erased as it felt really cheap and unnatural. Because the shadow was added, it felt much more elevated and professional and matched the high school setting we are going for. One thing I might want to improve on our next project is the lighting, as we were not using natural light, it felt very enclosed and very not relaxed but overall it is a very minor detail and we still liked our thumbnail either way.

I edited the final thumbnail for our mockumentary.