What have you learned from your audience feedback?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?Evaluation Question 4 Poppy Frost

Contents;What I learned about conventionsWhat I learned about target audiencesWhat I learned about the importance of music/audioWhat I learned about my rough cutCONTENTS

Originally from conventions;From asking target audiences, I found out more about the stereotypical conventions of a documentary than I originally did in the beginning. The conventions of what I thought of documentaries originally can be seen here: http://poppyfrosta2media.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/genre-documentaries.html

As seen on the mind-map, my original knowledge was very limited on documentaries.CONVENTIONS

What I learned from the audience feedback;The audience feedback helped me see the other conventions of documentaries. For example, documentaries dont always necessary have a presenter; in some cases, it is simply the real story of someone, and not the presenter explaining the narrative. This notion is something which added to the inspiration of my short documentary. While there is still a presenter, the documentary is primarily the story of the interviewee, and is not dominated by the narrator.CONVENTIONS

How the audience feedback helped;The audience feedback helped with my documentary as it opened up ideas and options that I had not previously considered; primarily the one I had mentioned before.The audience feedback helped me also through making me think about how to challenge the conventions of documentaries, primarily through the lack of having any sort of faces within the film, and so helped me expand my mind and helped me be more creative with a genre of film which is usually considered straightforward.Click here to go back to contents.CONVENTIONS

Originally from target audiencesOriginally, I thought that target audiences were very straight forward; children watched things, naturally, aimed toward children like CBBC videos and such, young people watched music videos and feature films, and elderly people only watched things on the television. While many of this was true, I was also shown other things which were surprising.TARGET AUDIENCES

What I learned from the audience feedback;I conducted a survey using the website Survey Monkey, and used social media to advertise the survey which can be viewed here: http://poppyfrosta2media.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/target-audience-survey.html

All together, I got 24 responses from both people my age (17-19) and adults (with ages ranging from 20-50). With the results I gathered, I created a video which displayed the results.TARGET AUDIENCES

Audience survey video;

TARGET AUDIENCES

What I learned from my audience feedback continued;Something which I found interesting was how many people thought that children were a consumer of short films, when I originally considered children to mainly consume feature films and television series. However, with the constant increase of technology, this actually makes much more sense as children have more access to the internet, and so can have access to websites like YouTube which broadcast short films.In documentaries, which is the area in which I looked at, children didnt come into the equation. Instead, people believed that the older people are, the more likely they are to watch documentaries. I found this interesting, as this made adults and the elderly my target audience.TARGET AUDIENCES

How the audience feedback helped;The audience feedback about target audiences helped me in my final product as it gave me a clear vision as to who my target audience was; adults and the elderly. With this kept in mind during the production of my main product, I made sure that the documentary could be relatable within these age groups. To do this, I had the voice and story of an elderly person, which meant that the elderly could relate to the story. Adults could then also relate to this when remembering the stories they would hear from their parents who would have had similar experiences to my grandmother.TARGET AUDIENCESClick here to return to contents

Originally from music/audio;I originally did realise the importance of music and audio, however didnt quite realise as to how powerful it could be. AUDIO/MUSIC

What I learned from audience feedback;Originally, I had no idea what music to use within my documentary. After asking for peoples opinions, I learned that documentaries have different kinds of music dependent on their sub-genre; for example, a historical documentary may have orchestral music to evoke excitement about some sort of historical event. As mine was about fairies and nature, an orchestral piece wouldnt work, and so I had to look into something more fantastical.AUDIO/MUSIC

How the audience feedback helped;Without the audience feedback, I feel like I would have never have made the right choice of music for my documentary. Instead of choosing something orchestral like I said earlier, I instead went for something fantastical; after searching fairy tale music in YouTube, I found a piece by Brendon Fietcher called Castle in the Clouds. It fitted the tone perfectly; it was soft enough for the voice over to be heard, yet mystical enough to go well with the story being told. Through audience feedback, I also knew when to turn down the volume during speech, as well as fade it in and fade it out. The voice over was also commented on, with people enjoying how genuine it sounded as nanny relived her stories and memories, with this adding to the quality of the documentary. Many said that, without her sounding so genuine, they would have considered it to be a spoof or a mockumentary instead.AUDIO/MUSIC

Originally from rough cut;I thought it was good enough to be my final cut; I thought the editing was fine as well as the selected shots, though the editing techniques at the time was all rather basic.ROUGH CUT

What I learned from audience feedback;The first error I made in my rough cut was that I placed a collection of shots of the same type all together; I placed walking shots next to walking shots, close ups next to close ups, and so forth. I tried to make the documentary look too rigid rather than a story, as well as the editing techniques, again, being very basic. I was originally scared to try new things, however the audience feedback motivated me to try out new things.ROUGH CUT

How the audience feedback helped;The main thing I learned from audience feedback of both the conventions of a documentary and audience feedback is that editing was a huge part of documentaries. It motivated me to try new things, and learn how to use the track matte effect on Premiere Pro. The post in which how I explain how the effect is done, with the video I used and screenshots, is here:http://poppyfrosta2media.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/zooming-on-footage.htmlROUGH CUTHere, the video in which the technique is used:

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Over all;From my audience feedback, I have learned numerous new skills which have helped me in my final cut. This includes;New conventions of documentariesAbout target audiences, and who target audiences really areThe importance of audio and musicThe importance of editing techniquesWithout my audience feedback, I never would have tried new things or even have considered some of the things which I was given insight to. CONCLUSION

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