Investigation and analysis- (Audience Research)

Researching into the Audience 

I created a shot survey to ask people in my target audience some questions on what they think about documentaries. This is so i could get more information on what my audience do and or don't like about documentaries. This would let me develop my audience research as i could find out what they would want to see in my documentary. This help the documentary i make fit my audiences needs as it includes the things they want to see. I asked them 6 questions. They were:

1) Have you watched a documentary before?

2) What are your hobbies/interests?

3)What type of documentaries do you like to watch?

4)What interests you most when watching a documentary?

5)What makes you feel bored when watching a documentary?

6)What would you like to see most in a documentary?

1) I asked my audience if they have watched a documentary as I wanted to know what sort of things they knew about documentaries so I could do some follow up questions about what documentaries they have seen and what they do and don't like about documentaries and then when I plan to make my documentary I can include things that they like in documentaries to make my documentary more suited towards a younger audience so they like my product. I am going to include as many of the codes and conventions as i can as my target audience are familiar with them since they have seen documentaries before.

2) I asked my target audience their interests. This is because I needed some inspiration on what i wanted my documentary to be about. By knowing my audiences interests

I could get an idea on what i wanted my documentary to be about. Obviously there is a lot of different suggested themes. I am just going to pick one of the themes that I think I can create the most while relating it to the clients brief which is how technology has impacted young people. At the moment I am thinking about maybe making it on video games and how the advancement of video game technology has affected young people over the years and how it has vastly evolved over time. 

3) I asked my audience what type of documentaries they like to watch to see about what styles they like. They responded with music, nature, crime and football. Based off this information I can look into those type of documentaries, see what style of documentary they follow and use that to see what they do well. I can take inspiration off my research to plan my documentary. I probably wont make a documentary off nature or crime due to the fact that those topics don't really relate to technology, so it will be hard to make a 10-15 minute documentary on nature or crime while linking it to documentary. I did like the idea of a football documentary and I was going to consider it as it is a topic I am interested in so I could talk a lot about it, however since it only briefly links to technology via the social media side of things and betting apps, it will be hard to link it to technology and I feel like I would go off topic easily so the end product wouldn't suit the BBC's brief. Instead of doing these themes, I am going to look at existing products of the themes suggested and see what makes music, Nature, crime and football documentaries good and attract the audience such as codes and conventions those documentaries include so I can adapt it to my documentary to suit my audience.

4) I wanted to find out about things interest my audience most when watching a documentary. Such as any themes, codes or conventions, shot types things like that. This will give me some ideas on how I want to set my documentary in order to interest the target audience as it is important to gain their attention otherwise it wont be a successful product. They responded with things like "personal anecdotes", "subject matter" , "interviews with people they know or celebrities". These are some of the codes and conventions from existing documentaries from existing products that interest my audience the most. So I will try to include these in my documentary in order to interest my audience. I will also be adding some other codes and conventions from existing popular documentaries to interest the audience and make my documentary interesting.

5) I asked my audience what makes them feel bored when watching a documentary. This is so I don't include anything that they don't want to see as this could lose their attention span and make them click away from the documentary. I want the documentary to be entertaining as possible. By learning about what my audience didn't like about documentaries they watched in the past, I can make sure I don't include it in my documentary so I only include things they want to see. 

6) For one last question, I wanted to know what my audience wanted to see from a documentary. This could be things like themes, characters, the direction/ story of the documentary, the mood of the documentary, the codes and conventions. following this i can start to make notes and a plan of things i am going to include in my documentary. One thing they wanted to see is a story line. This is something that I plan to include as if I do it on video games, I will show the evolution of the video game technology between years ago when it was 8 bit pixels and now where you can play games in 4k or 1080p. It will have a flow and set story to show how the technology evolves over time and effects young people. Another thing someone wants to see is factual information, this is something I will be including which we bill in the form of facts through background information into the subject which will be good to inform and educate the audience into the topic in case they don't know much about it. Something else they will like to see in reenactments. This is something I want to include because lots of good popular documentaries have them where the reenact a scene to give you an accurate idea of what happened at the time so it puts you into the characters position as you know what happened. 

Focused Group questions

I then did some follow up questions with some people in person to find out more about what they would like to see from my documentary. This is so i can get some more detailed responses so i can start to get more ideas on how i am going to create my documentary and what i am going to include. This will help me to start to create my audience profile. 

1)What interests you most into a documentary?

2)what style of documentaries do you like to watch?

3)What is your earliest memory into playing video games?

4)What would you like to see in a documentary about video games?

1) I asked my audience what interests them into a documentary so i could find out what aspects of previous documentaries entertain them the most so i could apply it to my documentary. Something they said if the person they are interviewing is related to the subject or if they are interviewing a celebrity as it is inspiring. Obviously i wont be able to include a celebrity as i don't have any relations with them, however i could include archive footage of videogame creators and credit the source. That way its accurate and truthful to the person in subject. to also include content of my own, i will include interviews of my own of people in  my target audience age range to get their opinions on games and their experiences as i feel that will fascinating as it is about people their age and its something the viewers could relate to if its an opinion they share a similar views of. Another thing someone else said is if it includes the voice of god as it gives them involvement and background info on whats going on. I want to try to include a voice of god by recording voice overs as i think that this will make the documentary more entertaining to the audience as it will explain what is going on and will give them background info on what is going on. It will also help to narrate the process and the storytelling to help make the flow of the documentary be more clear.

2) I asked my audience what style of documentary they like to watch. This is so i could get an idea on how i'm going to set out the story of my documentary and what direction it will take. some common answers were crime and Nature documentaries. although I'm not making a crime or nature documentary i can take away what those 2 styles have in common. Both of those styles include lots of voice of god to narrate what is happening in the scenes. This is because crime documentaries include voice of god to narrate what is happening in the crime scene which is played over a reenactment of a scene or archive footage of a scene. And in a nature documentary they use Voice of God over footage of the animals. As of themes and styles, my audience like Participatory documentaries which is a popular documentary style as the filmmaker gets involved with the narrative. This is the direction i want to take also as I will mostly focus the narrative as i am going to be doing voice overs, interviews, game play etc. So in this documentary i will be mostly influencing everything that happens which means i will mostly follow the style of a participatory documentary.

3) Since i am following the theme of showing how the advancement of videogame technology has impacted young people over the years, i wanted to research into my audiences experience with videogames by asking them What is their earliest memory with videogames. This part of the documentary would be a heavy focus point as it would be the era in videogames in which my audience first experienced it so therefore they will relate their first experience with nostalgia and childhood memories. This will be the part which will entertain my audience the most as this is something they can relate to as it is their earliest memory so when they think of the subject of videogames they will think of their first time experiencing it. This is something that you do with anything is relate to your first time doing that thing. Lots of my audiences earliest videogame experiences is playing games on the Nintendo Wii. This was very popular back in the day as it was one of the best selling game consoles so obviously lots of people in my target audience age demographic grew up playing games on the Wii so this will be a focus point as i think lots of people in my target audience played the Wii and will be entertained if i talked about it and included Wii gameplay. So this will be a videogame era i go into detail with talking about peoples experiences, showing gameplay, talk about sales statistics to show why the technology in the Nintendo Wii was a huge turning point in the progression and evolution of videogame technology.

4) To help to start to draft out some ideas and come up with a plan in pre-production, I asked my audience what they would want to see in a documentary about videogames. One thing they want to see is a variety of videogames. This is important to include so i am not limiting my audience as i want to include things everyone will enjoy. I don't want to limit my audience and therefore not entertain everyone. As a result I want to cover multiple videogame genres so there is something for everyone. They also want to see how it started and where it is now. That is the overall plan and flow of the documentary as i want my documentary to have a historical flow to show how the gaming technology has evolved over time. This is the unique selling point that i think will help make my documentary entertaining and gain the audiences attention. Someone playing the videogames and there opinions on the games. I will plan to include this by showing footage of someone playing the game, this will be different shots using over the shoulder shots so you see the person and TV in one shot. I could then have it cut to a shot of an insert shot to show the controller in hand and maybe have it switch back to an over the shoulder shot or an up close shot of the screen. Having a variety of shots during the game play will make the documentary way more engaging and entertaining.