Audience Review-Sunil Chandla

It is vital before any production process to develop a forecast of possible ideas that can be implemented into our documentary. For example by doing some research was vital, we had to produce a questionnaire in which would produce audience feedback on their own preferences when it comes to watching documentaries.

We surveyed around 30 individuals asking roughly 10 questions about themselves such as age, gender etc.., but we also asked about what they would like to see in documentaries?, if they are interested in them? And also what you would expect in our Documentary?


To make this a fair test we equally chose 15 boys and 15 girls, therefore the information we receive would not be biased to one specific gender. Although the age category varied as we had many more 18-21 category then 15-17 and 22+. This is because the majority of students are of this age and we began to realise that documentaries do not tend to be for younger students as it involves a lot of focus where as a mature student may learn from watching documentaries and relate to them.

We then asked what they would/should see in a documentary. The response was mainly focused on 4 key elements. They were voice-over, cutaways, interviews and finally news paper headlines. Majority of course suggested interviews as they make or break the documentary. We then knew that interviews were vital to gain.

We also asked whether are topic is relevant to today’s society and how we should show this. The response was fairly optimistic but some said that although there are some bad students the majority are well behaved and that it doesn’t appeal to everyone. Another response that it would be a good area of investigation but getting students in the act of being bad would be impossible therefore we then had to think how we can show bad behaviour using other methods.

We ended with the question with, is there anything specific you would like to see? Some explained how they would like to see the opinions of not just teachers but students themselves, they also wanted to see how maybe someone important can resolve this matter.

In conclusion, as a group we knew that getting interviews was vital and that also cutaways would be a great way to make the documentary more appealing. Therefore the audience review proved to be a success in giving ideas for our own documentary.