Audience Research

Results of Research

The results for the research aided us for what we can acheive with this film, in terms of editing and production. The results we received will eventually play a part in reaching the needs of the audience as a collective because the responses we received varied responses with most of the questions. 

The most popular choice for a documentary is mixed one. The sub-genre itself, pays attention to detail further to the typical features for a documentary. This is rather unpromising as this category is solely focussed on interviews, narration and archive footage and so this comes across as being too bland and unoriginal, if it is used for poor measure or if it is used excessively. However, it's suggested by our research as largely recommended, we can learn from this by reminding ourselves to cover a large proportion of the film compared to the rest of the footage.

The results for this question has taught us that compositon is key for a documentary for it balances features witht he likes of camera angles, the authenticity of sound motifs. We want to ignore archive footage & reconstructions owing to the fact they're more to do with movie based documentaries; ours being more suited to a TV.

In terms of the delivery of audio in the documentary, we asked whether people would favour having a voiceover, an onscreen presenter or if they didn’t mind at all. People were fond with having a voiceover as a response rather than not considering it, and, in my opinion, I agree it would be a exponentially good support for the film as a sort of touch-up. 

Although we were sure to not be hassled with adding any particular voice narrative, it seems to come with great value after all, having a voiceover or not using it at all really depends because alot of people answered with 'Don't Mind', so we should consider it if I really want to reach a level 5 and a voice-over will improve upon my current target level which is 'proficient'.

I believe an onscreen presenter is not necessarily optional for our film as it doesn't link with the emotional impact we tried to imply from the setting. I've seen documentaries in the past where they're used occasionally, but, in my opinion, I deem it as below par for portraying a serious documentary such as ours.

I was hesitant to believe this, but it surprised me to see people msotly answered the question ‘Does non-diegetic sound support a documentary’ with the answer ‘yes’. To my disbelief, I was wrong to think that non-diegetic sound didn’t support a documentary because I thought it would ruin its faithfulness to the genre. 

It was not until I watched a behind-the-scenes video in a media lesson that it began to influence the creation of our film, the video focussed on a man responsible for creating authentic sound motifs and adding them to clips from a nature documentary with horrendous background noise, improving them immensely. Of course beforehand, I was referring to the type of sound effects that sound too obvious to a usual fictional film and using this in a documentary wouldn’t make sense.

Our answerers preferred archive footage, which interests people the most in documentaries. I would agree archive footage furthers the balance of content because too many interviews or angles for visual shots can get very dull if it's used too much . Although, we will not use this feature because archive footage provides higher production value than we've filmed in the process, together with the lack of ideas of how our film could be recreated.

In spite of not using the most popular result, we've gained knowledge from people who've answered other than archive footage inspiring us to make sure our has equivalence and lineaments are placed into separate positions rather than having them clustered together.

Are there any documentaries you have found particularly memorable?

If they answered yes, they stated what those documenatries were.

Answer 1: 9/11 Documenatries - Using actual footage of people recording the events of the day.
Answer 2: Planet Earth and Frozen Planet.
Answer 3: The Man with the Ten Stone Testicles.
Answer 4: Exit through the Gift Shop.
Answer 5: Food Inc. - Extradionary look at the reality of food.
Answer 6: Man on the Wire, Brian Cox's documentaries of the universe and Planet Earth.

The Questionaire

Circle answers

1.     Gender:

(Circle answer)

Male         Female

2.     Age:

            ____________

Reason: Both age and gender may have different opinions on documentaries. It's better to have a wide range of results and risk to try see a patterns amongst these results.

3.     Are you an avid viewer of documentaries?

Yes         No

Reason: If they say yes, this will be important, as we need to be attentive to answers for the questions 
below. This is because they'll be fully aware of what goes into a documentary. 

4.     What documentary sub-genre do you prefer to watch?

(Circle one)

                        ‡         Mockumentary (e.g. Borat)

                        ‡         Docusoap (e.g. Big Fat Gypsy Wedding)

                        ‡         Fly on the Wall (e.g. Big Brother)

                        ‡         Mixed Documentary (interviews, observation, actuality footage, archive material and narration)

                        ‡         Docudrama (e.g. Apollo 13)

Reason: If one is mentioned the most, we could use elements from that subsidiary of documentary to the film without giving the impression that it's a complete sub-genre.

5.     Are there any documentaries you have found particularly memorable?

Yes            No

               If yes, what? ______________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Reason: We could incorporate the 'particularly memorable moments' to enhance our film even further.

6.     Which of the following content do you most prefer in a documentary?

(Circle one)

                        ‡         Eccentric Angles

                        ‡         Interviews

                        ‡         Archive Footage

Reason: We want to be able to focus on one aspect more than others so the proportions for each are correct.

7.     Do you think that non-diegetic (sound edited into the film) sound supports a documentary?

Yes            No

Reason: Non- diegetic sounds can often ruin the authenticity, and overall feel for a documentary. Although these will be included, we don't want sounds to be obvious of being fake that people will know it's edited.

8.     Do you prefer a presenter on screen or a voiceover?

(Circle one)

·       Onscreen Presenter

·       Voiceover

·       Don’t mind