Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For our audience feedback we showed our finished product to various people of different age, gender, class and ethnicity. We then filmed their answers to specific question based on the documentary we had constructed. All answers were honest and of their own views and opinions of the media product.

The question we asked first was, ‘How similar is our documentary to other mainstream documentaries?’. We realised that by asking the audience this question we can gauge from the response weather or not the documentary we have created is similar if not identical to other media products seen by them previously. It is crucial that our documentary incorporates many of the codes and conventions of other more recognizable documentaries. This will allow viewers to recognize the genre of the documentary. Also whilst trying to follow some of the codes and convention of established documentary it is important we create a documentary that is not identical to others, otherwise it will seem to familiar with audience and consequently less interesting.
The response from the question enabled us to establish what format style of documentary ours fitted in to. As you can see in the video footage, people replied by saying our documentary reminded them of material seen on channel four and also the bbc 2 news night series of documentaries. It was apparent for most, that conventions like cutaways, the choice of voice over and logo were said to be similar to bbc/channel 4 documentary style. These are all well established informational channels.
The feedback gathered from this question is defiantly positive, the aims of creating a documentary where to create one similar or in the style of a BBC news night documentary. The feedback on this question shows how our documentary would fit into the mainstream television viewing and could feature on information channels such as channel 4 and the bbc. We can know see as a group we was successful in following codes and conventions of other credible documentary styles.

We then asked the audience ‘What are the strengths of the documentary?’. By asking this question we can see as group what parts if not all of the documentary we had done well or to a high standard. The strengths that were mentioned were the uses of cutaways, their responses showed that the cutaways we used benefited the documentary greatly as they were appropriate to the topic and also the variety of shots were broad, thus making the documentary more interesting. As cameraman it was vital that I shot cutaways that were linked to the voiceover and topic. Also another strength noted was the speakers used, the feedback showed that the speakers we used were current and closely linked to the topic which is an important strength as it highlighted how the strengths of our documentary, ie the speakers helped make the topic of child internet safety more engaging to the audience.

The final question we asked our audience was ‘What are the weaknesses of the documentary?’. Although it was important to highlight the strengths of the documentary it was even more so to establish the weakness of the documentary. By asking this question, we can see what criticisms were made and in what way could the documentary be improved. This could help us in developing the media product further in the future. Its seems to be apparent, from the audience’s response to this question that a main weakness in our documentary is the fact that it is biased. The audience felt that we only explored the negatives of internet safety for children and that being biased felt that the documentary was on sided. This weakness showed that our documentary was in danger of not portraying the whole current situation of internet safety for children. This constructive criticism is important because as a group we can now create ideas of how our documentary could be changed to rectify this. Possible speakers form the other side of the argument could be included to make the documentary balanced and faire.
Secondly another weakness mentioned was the choice of music used in the documentary. It was described as ‘tedious and sleepy’, this criticism showed how the music used could possible ‘bore’ viewers, therefore making the documentary less engaging.

In conclusion to this the audience was vital in establishing the good and bad factors in the documentary. The constructive criticism is vital for any media product as it can bring to light any areas that could be improved and identify to us were we went wrong in the construction of the documentary. It could be said that overall the majority of the audience believed our documentary replicated a mainstream media product. Also we now know that we could improve our documentary by making the argument more balanced and change the music to a more engaging sound.