The target audience i the demographic of people who are most likely to show interest in your product or service. In some cases you'll want to narrow your target audience even further, for example trying to reach something as specific as single men in their 20's. This matters because the tone of your work should reflect the type of people you're trying to reach.
Finding your target audience: In some cases, you can find your target audience by thinking about the types of needs or thees that your documentary or film fulfills. If your audience is difficuly to narrow down, you can gather data about your demographic by surveys or focus groups.
In some cases, it's important that when you've finished your film, you could send out an email, flyer or survey to measure how many people respond to it. Therefore, it is then down to the director or animator to see if using a different tone or style is more or less effective than your first attempt. The best artists and animators are constantly testing and adjusting their methods and techniques to deliver the best results.
Understanding your target audience is crucial to the best acceptance of your documentary or film. getting to know the demographic allows you to work harder to meet the needs of your audience - when this is completed your documentary/film will be able to thrive with the audience appopriate.
Target Audience Research: There are usually five questions needed to be asked when producing any film or documentary:
Who is my target audience?
What do my target audience want to see?
How will I reach out to my target audience?
What other methods could I use to reach out to my target audience?
In order to find out the target audience, I used the UK film council to find out the demographic information of my audience.
The information shows that the 50% percentage or over (that enjoy watching Documentaries) is mainly:
Males aged 25-34 years old
Males 35 - 44 years old
Males 45 -54 years old
Males 55+
Females 24 - 35 years old
Females 35 - 44 years old
Females 45 - 54 years old
Females 55+
Referring to pg 106 of the UK Film council document, the information tells me the demographic and market segments of the genre of films that the public enjoy watching. By looking at this, it is obvious that my primary target audience will be Males who are 35 years and older, with the secondary target audience being females 35 and older. This also extends to those who are parents, with a minority coming in at 20% and those who aren't at 37%.
From secondary research, the facts and figures about the audience would claim that:
Often watch documentaries whilst travelling
Big at home viewers - 99% watch documentaries at home - on TV/online
Highest proportion of single/non-family orientated families
More likely to watch short and feature length documentaries
97% watch at least 2 documentaries per month, and over half watch 3
Enjoy watching documentaries at the cinema
Avid festival goers
53% have a total household income of less than ££45,000 per year
77% use social media
80% have a university degree
Most likely to read books/magazine on a tablet and to play video games
They are the greatest adopters of Netflix (68% usage) and of online download services
Greatest consumers of documentaries online
Survey - Target Audience
As part of my research propositions within my proposal, I devised a survey to understand what the demographic for documentary watchers were. These were sent out on all social media platforms and the questions asked helped to gain an understanding of my target audience for 'Joey'. This enabled me to gain an inisight into what my audience would like to see within my documentary.
Analysing the results:
The age demographic for people who intended to watch documentairs fell at 70% for 16-25, which contradicted what I initially thought it would be. I didn't think many people aged 16-25 would willingly watch documentaries. Therefore, it would be appropriate to include aspects of a topic that could also relate to that age demographic.
63% of documentary watchers were female, whereas 37% were male. This didn't shock me as from the previous analysis of results, male documentary viewers seemed to be the highest too.
Considering that the most respondents claimed to watch documentaries on a monthly basis, it would seem appropriate to make sure the documentary they are watching is as enriched with content as it could possibly be. This is so that it could potentially double the chance of them watching a documentary on a more frequent basis.
My initial proposal for the documentary was to produce a 'short', from target audience research it would seem that it would be more beneficial for the audience to produce a long documentary that covers the base of a variety of perspectives to engage the audience for longer. With no respondents claiming to watch a 'short' documentary consisting of 5-10 minutes.
For the topic target research, I wanted to make sure I'd included a wide range of subject areas so that I would be able to venture in to multiple subjects to attract a broder audience. The disabilities and government policies were relatively high on the list of topics that people would watch. This result is pleasing as my documentary will cover disabiltiy and it's relationship with the government.
Conclusion of Results:
By producing a survey for respondents I was able to understand the target audience for documentaries as a whole, wihilst also considering the topics that they most aspire to watch. These results have helped shape my development regarding my storyboard, animatic and sound. By being able to talk directly to the target audience of my documentary I now have the skills and research needed to produce a documentary that can be widey accepted by a range of demographics.
Sound within Documentaries
Researching Documentary Sound: Sound within Documentaries are used to create tension, and for many emotions such as anger, happiness and sadness. In a documentary, depending on the genre, the most common sounds that are used within documentaries are ambient, voiceovers and non-diegetic.
"Documentary makers learn how to stage interviews so that the interview will appear to speak directly to the viewer. Michael Rabiger instructs in 'Directing the Documentary, "During the interview, you should maintain eye contact with your subject and give visual (not verbal) feedback whilst the interview goes on". Interview films increase the clarity of directness of speech through editing techniques and shooting conventions" (1)
"Therefore, location sound within observational documentaries does not clearly differentiate foreground and background spaces; rather, all sounds compete together in the middle ground. The lack of clarity of the sound undermines the communicative intent of these films. Shotgun microphones are frequently used in documentary productions precisely because that allow for a choice of narrative information and raise the ratio to direct reflected sound, thus isolating sounds in the environment. "(2)
Conventions of Sound:
"Sound converts emotion, pictures coveys information, even if you're only doing a simple interview with pure dialogue, a rich sounding human voice will make a difference.
Viewers expect transparent audio, as we usually don't apologise for slight imperfections in terms of our video image quality, as most viewers will overlook them, but sound is different. Sound is that important, people expect transparent (good) sound.
Microphone placement and noise management are the primary factors differentiating amateur and professional recordings. The problem with most amateur sound recordings is excessive ambient noises from a variety of sources and low sound levels.
Setting proper sound levels and monitoring your recording is crucial as for the best recording you'll need to actively set recording levels, so not too loud to avoid distortion and not too soft so the sound is lost in the noise." (3)