What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

To gain information and criticism about our documentary, we screened our finish product to
a number of people who would fit into the main age of our target audience (16 – 20) and
then asked them three questions on their thoughts and views of our documentary.

We firstly asked the audience ‘How does our documentary remind you of other
documentaries?’ we asked this question because wanted to learn if we was successful in
captivating the codes and conventions of other real media products. It was one of the main
targets of our group to make our documentary use such codes and thus, mirror and reflect
other mainstream documentaries that are aired on very popular television channels.

All of our audience members gave us feedback that said the documentary reminded them of
similar and traditional documentaries that they have watched on television such as news
night, channel 4 and the BBC. They said we had succeeded in doing this by incorporating
codes and conventions of other documentaries such as cutaways, a voiceover, the
production logo, opening credits, titles and the graphics used.

The feedback from this question was all very positive. Not one member of the audience
gave us negative feedback and therefore this part of our documentary was a big success.
Before starting the production of the product, we wanted to be successful in reflecting other
commercial documentaries by using various techniques used in current and traditional
documentaries. By using this question and gaining this feedback, I have learnt that our
group was successful in developing and using codes and conventions of real media products
and that our documentary did present itself as a real documentary would.

We then asked the audience ‘What are the strengths of the documentary?’ it was very
important to gain feedback from this question so that we as a group could reflect on the
real high points of our documentary and what the best features of it were. A very popular
strength that was highlighted by nearly all of the audience was that we used very good
cutaways that coincided with what the voiceover was saying and the subject matter. The
choice of interviewees was also highlighted as strength within the documentary, it was said
by the audience that the interviewees were relevant to the subject matter and the fact that
we had a varied age range of interviewees (ranging from young students to parents)
benefited to the success of the product. As director, it was my job to organise all interviews
and decide on whom we should interview, by gaining this feedback it seems that my input
was very well put to work and contributed to the success of the overall documentary.

Another strength that was noticed by the audience was that the subject of our documentary
was relevant within today’s society and it is a major subject concerning the public. By
gaining this feedback and the other strengths that were brought up by the audience, it is
clear that the major parts of our documentary was all very good and the majority of our
documentary worked in favour of similar documentaries, which is what we wished to
achieve at the beginning of our production.
The last question we asked the audience was ‘What are the weaknesses of the
documentary’ we asked this question because we wanted to gain information and feedback
from the audience stating the weak points in our documentary and parts of the product
need to be improved next time. It is important for us to gain this type of feedback and
criticism so that we can make future products to a higher standard and create an overall
better result.

The main area of weakness that came up from the audience was that there was only one
view and that the documentary was bias and only focused on the negatives of the internet
for young children. To counterbalance this bias view, we could have used interviewees that
look at the positives of the internet and use statistics and facts that show what goods the
internet can hold for children. The music was another key area that was brought up by the
audience, the feedback stated that the music was tedious and a better choice of music could
have given the documentary a little bit better quality.

The feedback from this question has clearly identified what areas of the product need to be
addressed and it has identified what could be done to improve the documentary. Although
these are negative aspects of our documentary, I still feel this is positive feedback, I think
this because there was only two areas of weaknesses throughout the whole of the
documentary, meaning the majority of the product was done to a high standard and little
needs to be changed.

Overall, from the audience feedback gained, I have learnt that the ways in which we have
used the codes and conventions of documentaries reflects real media products. There are a
high number of strengths that have helped in aiding the documentary to be a successful
one, and there are very small areas of the documentary that could be adjusted. All in all I
see this feedback as very positive and have given evidence that we as a group have
produced a very good documentary that is of a high standard and one that is a big success.