DOCUMENTARY QUESTIONNAIRE

By asking for their age and gender, I could determine what my target audience is most likely going to be for my documentary. The most results for age were between 11 and 17, the second amount being 18 to 24. This was a good result as my target audience I am making my documentary for is in this range, meaning that from these results I will be able to focus on what they are interested in and to apply it to the production of my documentary. For gender it was mostly females that answered the quiz, showing that many females were interested in the quiz, many males also taking the quiz.

I next asked the audience about how often they watch documentaries, the main result being once or twice a month. The second best result was that they never, or rarely, watch documentaries meaning that I was gaining results from those that may not watch documentaries often but could still provide me with their ideas and preferences. I next asked them what out of the list they enjoyed the most about documentaries, a staggering amount enjoying investigating and interviews, showing that many that took the quiz watch documentaries to be educated rather than a form of entertainment, my documentary fitting under this topic.

I described what a poetic documentary was to the audience to help them understand the context of the question before asking them whether they would watch a poetic documentary, many saying maybe as an option. I then continued to ask them why they would or wouldn't watch a documentary, lots of the results speaking about it relying on the topic. The audience shows me that the topic is what makes people watch a documentary from their personal interests or things they want to learn more about.

'Just not my personal taste, but I fully respect a well made poetic documentary.'

'Definitely depends on the area the documentary is about, if it is an interesting subject, one that is not spoken of and underated even better.'

'It sounds interesting to watch and sounds good that it involves the audience in what they are watching.'

On asking the audience what kinds of documentaries they enjoy, I gained many different kinds of feedback such as animals and war and many film makers of documentaries such as Louis Theroux and David Attenborough. By asking them what topics they like, I can understand which audience I am reaching out to and what groups of the audience may enjoy my documentary.

I then explained my documentary topic to the audience and asked whether they thought this was a good idea for a documentary. From the 20 responses all of them were positive and agreed that perception was a good topic idea, expressing that they would be interested in the topic that I want to focus on in my documentary. This shows that the audience think this is a good topic and they would watch it, making my documentary successful to my target audience.

'Yes as it will offer a range of views and can involve many issues. Also some people may see things as issues that others don’t which will be interesting to explore.'

'Yes because it covers a topic that is popular within this generation.'

'Yes because we really need perspective on world issues right now.'

I then asked the audience for other comments, myself gaining feedback and useful information I can take into account. I asked this to help and understand the audience the best that I could and to see if they had any more information for me that I may not of asked that they think was important in response to some of the questions. These are the best comments:

'Don't be too repetitive some documentaries go back over previous ground and then reshow before moving on.'
'I don't know how your project is advancing and if you have realised you want to make an interview type of documentary, if so I would advise you to interview students, teachers, and if you can take it to the streets and ask pedestrians their opinion. Just an opinion. Good luck with your project, hope my opinion helped in any way.'

References