Jack Glennon

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience?

For part of my coursework, my group had to conduct a focus group of our final piece. We put a few questions to the group which included what aspects they liked, any improvements they would make, what they thought the target audience would be and did it look professional like other documentaries already out there. We received a wide range of comments.

My group and I created a closed group on Facebook and posted the link to the video and a range of questions for them to answer. The group consisted of a range of people who all had experience in media so the responses we received would be knowledgeable and professional. We asked them what they felt some of the strong points of the documentary were. One of the main things that most of the people picked up on was the range of camera angles and shots of the class that were used and also the video transitions between shots was another thing that was picked up by the group. A few of the participants also said that they enjoyed the voiceover over the establishing shots, also another thing was the use of overlaying shots of the class training over the interview section as it made the interview less mediocre and boring to watch.

We also received some negative feedback about the documentary and some constructive criticism about improvements that could be made to the video. This was something we asked the group to do as it would help us to improve. One of the major things that was noticed

and believed that could be improved was the addition of more than one interview as our

Jack Glennon

documentary only featured one interview with the instructor and founder of Jarmesty Martial Arts Academy, Russell Jarmesty. They suggested that we could possibly use some interviews with students at the club in order to gain a different point of view about the club and would have provided a greater diversity and possibly attract a wider target audience.

Another thing we asked the group to think about was what they thought would the target audience would be. The majority of the group said that they thought it would mainly be for young male adults but that it could also possibly attract a wider range.

Adding to this, we also wanted to know whether the camera and editing techniques looked professional and the whole group responded unanimously in saying that they indeed looked professional. The final question we put to the group was whether or not our documentary looked like documentaries already on TV or even conformed to the typical conventions of the documentary genre. Once again the whole group believed that the documentary we had produced looked like documentaries they had previously seen and followed the conventions of the genre.