A2 Media Studies Evaluation

Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Oliver Mitchell

For the research and planning of the documentary, we conducted a questionnaire to collect information about our target audience, so that we could include this in the documentary. I asked a number of students and youths between the ages of 16 and 25 a range of questions in order to discover what their opinions were about fitness and how it affects their daily lifestyle. Of the people that I asked, 61% have a gym membership allowing them to maintain the fitness they need, however it appears that only 55% find fitness an important factor in their daily lifestyle. This shows that although the 6% own a gym membership, they do not find it a vital part of their life style. We later created a second questionnaire to ask our target audience what they thought about our documentary, in order to assess how successful it was in achieving our aims The questionnaire included a number of questions about issues ranging from sound levels to the use of effects. It included questions about the documentary, the radio trailer and the magazine article.

Oliver Mitchell

Documentary

Oliver Mitchell

Q1. Did you learn anything from our documentary

11%

89%

Yes No

The first and most important question we had to ask was whether the audience learned anything from the documentary. 89% of the viewers said that they did learn something from watching our documentary. This is important because it shows that the documentary was able to keep the audiences interest and was informative enough to keep them watching, showing it was a good documentary.

Oliver Mitchell

Q2. Do you feel that our documentary resembles a real life production?

6%

Yes No
94%

94% of people asked found that the documentary resembled a real life product. This showed us that not only was the documentary appealing to watch but that people also thought that it had a professional appearance, which was what we had hoped to achieve.

Oliver Mitchell

Q3. Did you feel that the use of editing was relevant to what was on the screen at that point?

6%

11%

Yes No
83%

Occasionally

Our use of editing was also deemed to be successful. 83% of people said that they thought our use of editing techniques was used at appropriate times. 11% said that our editing was relevant only occasionally. This showed that overall they did not find our editing a complete disaster, but that we could have improved it at certain points.

Oliver Mitchell

Q4. Did you find the quality of the documentary consistent throughout?

22%

Yes
78%

No

In terms of quality, only 78% of the people asked thought that the quality of the documentary was consistent throughout. This tells us that there must have been some points where people were not fully satisfied with the documentary. It therefore could have been improved in order to maintain a consistent quality.

Oliver Mitchell

Q5. Did you feel the backing track was relevant to the topic?

17%

Yes
83%

No

83% of people found that the backing track was relevant to the topic. This clearly shows us that the backing track we used was successful and people thought that the tone of the track really set the mood, although the track was fairly repetitive.

Oliver Mitchell

Q6. Did you find that the sound levels were consistent throughout?

17%
50% 33%

Yes

No
Maybe

When we asked people about the sound levels, we found that 50% of the people were not sure if they were consistent, and a further 33% did not find them to be consistent at all. This shows us we had a serious flaw in our documentary and people were not satisfied. We found that when we played the audio back, for some of the interviews, the sound was panned to either the left or the right hand side. This was most likely the cause of inconsistency and it could have been easily adjusted.

Oliver Mitchell

Q7. Did you find the interviews interesting and informative?

11%

The large majority of people asked, 89%, were interested in our interviews. They found them to be both interesting and informative.
Yes
89%

No

Oliver Mitchell

Q8. Is there any element of the documentary that could be improved?

17%

Yes
83%

No

For this question we found that 83% of the audience said that there could be some improvement made to our documentary. When asked, the most common answer was to edit the sound levels. This was an easily changeable element that we could have looked into if we had had more time.

Oliver Mitchell

Radio Trailer

Oliver Mitchell

Q1. Did you find the radio trailer informative enough to convince you to watch the documentary?

6%

Yes No
94%

From the radio trailer, over 90% of the people asked said that they found the radio trailer informative. This was the main goal of the trailer as it was to interest the audience sufficiently to want to watch the documentary. Considering that 94% of people said it would convince them to watch the documentary, overall it suggests that the radio trailer was a success.

Oliver Mitchell

Q2. Did you find the sound levels to be consistent throughout?

41% 59%

Yes No

Although people said that they were convinced enough to watch the documentary, that does not mean there were no faults. Similarly to the documentary, we found that over 50% of the people asked said that they found the sound levels to be inconsistent. Again, this was to do with the pan of some of the audio clips. However, when we addressed this before showing it, we could not discover how to edit this within Garageband.

Oliver Mitchell

Q3. Did you find the radio trailer to sound professional?

47% 53%

Yes No

Lastly, we asked the audience if they found the radio trailer to be professional sounding. We got very mixed answers for this, with roughly 50% finding it did sound professional, and roughly 50% saying they did not find it professional. However, when we asked the 50% why they did not find it professional, they all said that it was due to the sound levels.

Oliver Mitchell

Magazine Article

Oliver Mitchell

Q1. Did you find the magazine article relevant to the documentary?

Yes No
100%

When we showed the audience our magazine article, 100% of them said that it related to the documentary. The clear relation between the documentary and the magazine article clearly shows that people can easily recognise the two products.

Oliver Mitchell

Q2. Did you feel that the images were to a good standard and appropriately used throughout?

Yes No
100%

The audience also agreed that the images we used were appropriate. Everyone we asked agreed that all of the images related to the topic of health and fitness and they were positioned on the page in a professional way. They felt that they were noticeable but not so large that they dominated the magazine article.

Oliver Mitchell

Q3. Did you feel that the magazine resembled a real life production?

Yes No
100%

100% of the audience also said that the magazine article represented a real life product. This clearly shows that the magazine we created is extremely professional. This was exactly what we were aiming for.

Oliver Mitchell

The questionnaires that we conducted were limited in terms of the information that they provided us with. The sample that we selected was of 18 people and was therefore very small. We needed to ask more people, an equal number of males and females, different social classes, and ethnic minority groups etc. in the proportions that they appear in the wider population. Our sample would then have been representative of the views of the target group. It would also have been better if we had conducted a pilot study to test out our questions to make sure that they would provide us with all the information that we needed. Our range of answer options (yes ,no and not sure) limited the detail of response and didnt help us to fully understand what people thought.

Oliver Mitchell

Overall, the response we got from the audience was very positive. They found that the documentary, radio trailer and magazine article were both informative and professional. The audience feedback was a crucial step to the project. Although it showed us that our documentary had achieved what we had aimed for, it also informed us of where it could have been improved. The most common suggestion for improvement was regarding the sound levels and most people were not happy with them. If we could improve the tasks, from the feedback we have been given, we would spend more time adjusting the sound levels from the clips. Although this was a relatively simple task, we did not take into account how important it would be and should have spent a lot more time ensuring it was above adequate.

Oliver Mitchell