WEEKLY JOURNALS

Week Three - Research

RESEARCH

What did you learn from your This week I have:

research? - Gained knowledge of what is required for me in
my genre in order to meet the genre and get a
distinction grade.
- Learnt what a good example of my genre of
documentary looks like.
- Been informed of what exactly my audience want
to see and therefore what I will be showing
them.
- What platform I should upload my documentary
to.

How has the research for your I have looked at two example documentaries that come
genre helped you improve your under my genre and I have picked out things I think
ideas? each of them have done well – under camera angles,
mise-en-scene, lighting and narration. A lot of the
things that I picked out I will be imputing into my
documentary as I think they will improve the
professionality, interesting my target audience, cover
the codes and conventions, etc. An example of this is in
the siria’s fortress documentary I thought being shown
footage of part of the route up to the fortress was
really effective and so I am going to include footage of
how I/ my subject got to each location we go to.

How has researching the My genre contains specific codes and conventions for
conventions of your chosen genre me to stick to. Looking into them has given me a
helped you understand what is clearer idea of the content I am and am not going to
required from you in order to meet include in my documentary. For example, I am now
a distinction grade? going to include stills as well as videos in my
documentary to have a range of content styles like
mentioned in expository documentary codes and
conventions. I understand that if I complete all of the
codes and conventions and to a great standard that I
will be on the road to a distinction grade documentary.

How has the research into your My target audience research is arguably the most
target audience helped you improve important part of my research I have done as my target
your ideas? audience are who my whole documentary is for – that
and Banff. Sending out a survey to my target audience
was a very direct and way in receiving the information
on exactly what my audience want to see in my
documentary. For example, the vast majority vote said
they would like to hear/ see personal stories about my
subject throughout the documentary. Also, the survey
ensured the information I was using was up to date as I
sent out my survey just this week and I got 20+ votes
which was a good amount so that I could create an
accurate average from some results. Secondly, online
 research allowed me to see information across a very
large mass of people. Both forms of research decided
on parts of my documentary for me rather than me just
choosing to do what I would prefer to see myself.

How has the research into your The research into what platform I will use has given me
platform helped you improve your a clearer idea on what I will reach most of my target
ideas? audience on. Both my survey and online research
concluded that my documentary would be most
successful YouTube. My online research also concluded
that it would be easiest to achieve. Both methods of
research coming out with the same result made my
decision very easy.

How has the research for your I conducted an interview with my documentary subject
content/topic helped you improve where I asked questions where the answers would be
your ideas? good content for my documentary. I am able to take a
lot from his answers when writing the voiceovers that
he will be reading out in the documentary. For
example, I asked him for an example of when he hasn’t
let age affect him doing what he loves. This covers a
personal story which my audience want to see, it is
inspiring which is both the purpose of my documentary
and what my audience wish to see, and it is interesting.

What work do you need to complete Some of the research into my genre was made outside
outside of lessons to stay on track? of lesson time. I am on track now though.