AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

By Sabrina Pinnu

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

From our audience feedback we were able to understand that our audience wanted to see something original from a crime documentary that focuses on young people, leading us to believe that our audience wanted it to be targeted at young people as the preferred channel to watch it on was BBC Three. We also learned the importance on our audience feedback to create an effective piece. By gaining feedback we were able to take into account the improvements we needed to make to perfect our piece. This therefore gave us an idea of the direction we should go with in our documentary which I think we did successfully as we interviewed young students, thereby focusing the documentary on young people which our audience could then connect with.

INTERVEWS – TEACHER & YOUTH WORKER

We showed interviews from a teacher and youth worker that sympathised with the young student called ‘Tom’, exploring a unique perspective that our audience asked for. From the audience feedback we have learned that meeting the audience’s expectations was key when wanting to have a positive response. They wanted to see interviews as they felt this is a typical convention that is shown in many crime documentaries and it is vital to have. We learned that by adding interview scenes within our documentary, this will give a clear view about the story to the audience, to see how Tom has progressed with his life but also what kind of help he had been receiving to get his life back on track.

POLLDADDYIn the beginning of the construction on our piece, we had received feedback from our audience about our documentary, this was done through the use of a survey by using polldaddy. We decided to ask a variety of different questions to our audience on what kind of documentary they would like to see. From our results we saw that the audience wanted to see a crime documentary which was mainly aimed at the style of a performative documentary, this instantly told us that the audience wanted to see something serious yet interesting about a life story of an individual. We learned that we had to take their feedback on board and made sure that we were aiming towards making a crime documentary than any other kind. This feedback, was useful as we wanted to make a crime documentary though we were not sure on what type of crime we wanted to concentrate on more, such as drug crime or alcohol crime. However, they wanted to us to specifically talk about drug crime which helped us, as this was what a younger target audience wanted to see therefore we had to aim towards this.

PITCHPOSITIVES IMPROVEMENTS

- Had a clear idea on what we wanted to see within the documentary.

- Confused as they didn’t understand what topic we were specifically targeting at, as we were still deciding between drugs or alcohol, they would rather see a documentary on youth drug crime.

- Knew what channel we wanted to broadcast our documentary on which was BBC Three, due to many documentaries within that channel are mainly aimed towards younger audiences.

- Unsure of the mise-en-scene that we were using as we hadn’t decided on that issue.

- Were aware of all the kinds of convention’s that we would need within our documentary. - Organised due to knowing what kind of ancillary tasks we would use, this was a radio advert and double page spread.

Following our pitch, we received audience feedback that was very beneficial for the process of our documentary. From this we learnt that the audience knew what was missing within our pitch, as they have seen other documentaries, so they could tell us what they expect to see and how to make it different/similar to other documentaries that we were aiming for. We also, learned that as we did not know what kind of genre we wanted our documentary to be aimed towards, our audience gave us a straight response on how they would prefer us doing a drug related documentary, therefore we made sure our documentary was aimed to drugs and not alcohol.

RADIO ADVERTPOSITIVES IMPROVEMENTS

- Liked the use of the title as it looked like a typical crime type of font. It was also used within the double page spread and documentary, so created synergy throughout.

- Needed to change the voiceover, to make it match with the voiceover from the documentary, to make links throughout the whole piece.

- Change the statistic to make it seem more shocking as we want to be able to feel as if we would want to go and watch the documentary.

We learned that by taking our audience feedback on board, it made our radio advert seem more shocking to the audience due to the statistic that was used but also due to the use of real people who were young, as they were giving their own opinion on what they think the average age group would be in consuming drugs. As well as, we learned that, it made our final radio advert seem more realistic as our aim was to draw in our younger audience.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREADPOSITIVES IMPROVEMENTS

Final double page spread - Liked the large silhouette image due to the characters being anonymous, so it look more appealing and eye catching.

1st double page spread – Not enough information and the picture of the pills looks pointless as it’s just sitting there.

Final double page spread - Liked the colour scheme of dark colours being used, as these were typical colours that link in well with the theme of crime.

2nd double page spread – BBC Three logo did not look good in the corner, as it looked unprofessional.

Final double page spread – The title linked in well with the radio advert and documentary, so showed synergy throughout.

2nd double page spread – Title should be connected as it did not look good broken up.

2nd double page spread – The use of the colour blue did not match well with the theme of the documentary (crime).

We learned from our audience feedback, these were vital changes that need to be made, as our double page spread had to look professional. Knowing we made the changes due to taking in our audience feedback, the links between the double page spread and documentary linked in well. They wanted out double page spread to have links with the topic of out documentary which was crime and this is what we did.

1ST ROUGH CUT POSITIVES IMPROVEMENTS

- Liked the shots of the high street as the quality and the shot of it was smooth.

- Some scenes were out focus so needs to be re-filmed, looked unprofessional.

- Liked the voiceover that was used at the start – had a statistic which drew in our attention in wanting to find out more about drug crime.

- Transitions were not smooth enough, which impacts the professionality.

- Liked the use of shots of the interview at the start, as it gave us an idea on what would come up within the documentary.

- Re-film Leah’s scene at the start, as the background looked really messy and it was quite shaky.

- Liked the shots of the high street as the quality and the shot of it was smooth.

- Some scenes were out focused so needs to be re-filmed, therefore looked unprofessional.

We learned that, by listening and taking in the advice from our audience, it would make our documentary look professional yet effective, as they would have more of an idea but also be able to see, as being the audience on what type of conventions that would be used within a performative documentary. Therefore, we made sure that we took on there advice to improve our documentary further.

2ND ROUGH CUT POSITIVES IMPROVEMENTS

- Liked the outside footage of ‘Tom’ walking where you used hand-held camera, so it made the documentary appear more natural and less formal.

- The sound is not continuous at the start when the character called ‘Leah’ is shown before the titles, therefore it should be levelled out.

- Liked the shots of the cigarette packet and beer on the grass, as it drew our attention, as I felt sympathetic towards ‘Tom’ due to the state he was in.

- The scene with the teacher suddenly ends, so the transitions could be smoother.

- The use of cut-aways, within the teacher's interview to ‘Tom’ working, was shown to be effective as it made it look more professional.

- The scene with ‘Ms Reed’ is too long so you lose interest so it needs to be shorter.

- The police station scene needs to be put in so that so it shows more consistency throughout the documentary.

From our audience feedback, we learned that, as they noticed small things which I and my group could not notice due to watching the documentary so many times, this showed us that we received the right feedback to develop our documentary further to make it effective. By also receiving positive feedback, about our second rough-cut, we learned that, not a lot needed to be improved and that we did meet the requirements for our audience, in what they wanted to see within a crime performative documentary which was positive to hear.

3RD ROUGH CUT POSITIVES IMPROVEMENTS

- Liked the combination of the double page spread of the title and the voiceover from the radio advert as it created synergy with our documentary.

- Some inconsistency at the start of the documentary of the police interview due to the video not being cropped like the police scene at the end.

- Liked the range of different interviews, as it was casual and not too staged.

- Change the police scene at the end as it did not make sense with the storyline of the documentary, so replace it with other footage that you may have.

- Liked, the camera angles within all the interview’s as it looked casual and not too scripted.

- Add in emotional music such as piano music, to influence our response towards ‘Tom’.

We learned that from our audience feedback, it helped us see certain things that we could not notice. So to improve our documentary further to make it look more professional, we took in their feedback and added in the last few bits. We also learned that due to the audience noticing the main conventions that were used within our documentary this showed us, that the use of conventions were shown to be clear to them which meant that we used them clearly within our piece, this is because as our documentary is aimed at a younger audience, our feedback was also from a younger audience so, this way they would most likely notice certain shots that would need to be improved but also notice scenes that were effective within our documentary as it drew in there attention.

FINAL CUT POSITIVES

- It was really natural and like a typical BBC Three documentary as there were shots of ‘Tom’ walking, but also due to having natural settings, interviews which were not scripted at all.

- The high street shots looked really professional due to the shots being smooth.

- Liked the use of the tracking shot and hand held camera shot, where you were following Tom in the park and alley way, as it made the documentary seem believable and realistic.

- Understood the narrative well, as the storyline was clear.

- The music and sound choice was good, as it matched well with the storyline and documentary style.

- Liked the northern accent voiceover, as it fitted in well due to being a typical BBC Three voiceover.

We received a load of positive feedback, this is because we took in our audiences' feedback from the start, of all our rough cuts to meet their needs, and because we did that, they liked our final piece. We were pleased to here positive feedback as we met what was needed to create an effective performative crime documentary. We made sure that we captured realistic shots, to make our documentary seem professional yet casual at the same time as we did not want it to be too formal. They really liked our final piece as we used all the conventions of a performative documentary, therefore we learned that the positive feedback from our audience, showed that we took in what was said to create an effective overall piece.

FINAL CUT – CONTINUED… For our final piece, I decided to upload it on Facebook which is a form of social media, this is another method of technology which was easy and simple to use as I just had to embed the link and copy and paste it onto Facebook. I decided to upload it onto Facebook, as this was another way to make our product more aware to our target audience, which was young students that we were aiming our documentary more towards. We received positive feedback from different people, where they commented on how they liked the use of the tracking shots as we used hand held camera (another method of technology) to create a natural style when we were filming as all we had to do was press the auto button to start filming. They also liked the high street shots which they thought looked really professional as we used a tripod to get a smooth tracking shot of the high street and lastly they liked the range of different interviews as it made the scene more interesting for them to watch. Therefore, from our audience feedback as it was positive we learned that, we used the right conventions to create a naturalistic/realistic documentary that was like a BBC Three style documentary yet unique in some ways, however we feel we did this successfully. Therefore, this was a great way to promote our product.

MOODBOARD

CONCLUSION In conclusion, we felt that we incorporated all of the feedback from our target audience, to make sure that it matched on what they wanted to see within our crime documentary. This is because, as they will be the one’s watching our documentary we wanted to make sure that we included everything that was needed to be within our documentary, as well as within our ancillary tasks too. We learned that from the audience's feedback, we were able to challenge the conventions yet use the conventions within our documentary effectively, as our audience were able to notice what we already had used and what we needed to use which we were not able to figure out or see, therefore it was useful to hear their feedback and opinion's and take on board what they said, to make our piece look more professional yet casual, which we did. But also we wanted to portray our documentary exactly like a BBC Three style, towards a younger audience, which we felt we did. Therefore, we made sure we created a realistic performative crime documentary which was unique yet different from the rest.