Target Audience

Target Audiences - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_audience

In marketing and advertising, a target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which a product or the marketing message of a product is aimed at.  For example, if a company sells new diet programs for men with heart disease problems (target market) the communication may be aimed at the spouse (target audience) who takes care of the nutrition plan of her husband and child.

A target audience can be formed of people of a certain age group, gender, marital status, etc., e.g. teenagers, females, single people, etc. A combination of factors, e.g. men aged 20–30 is a common target audience. Other groups, although not the main focus, may also be interested. Discovering the appropriate target market(s)and determining the target audience is one of the most important activities in marketing managemen. The biggest mistake it's possible to make in targeting is trying to reach everybody and ending up appealing to no-one.

My Target Audience

For my documentary I plan to be targeting a wide range of audiences both teenagers and adults, also I will be targeting the male and female gender. I would want to show my documentary across  more than one specific group of people,  as I feel it is an essential to show and give an understanding about my documentary to more than one group of people. By doing this I hope my audiences will either learn something new or remember past memories and relate to my documentary. I think my documentary will appeal more to adults and men purely because it will be about my Grandad and he's past which features him living threw WWII in which I found that Adults and Men are more attracted to. But hopefully Teenagers and the female gender will want to also see this because it could bring back memories and they could learn something new.  I would want my documentary to be screened from 8pm on Channel4 as I feel this will help us achieve a larger target audience, family's will be watching TV together around that time so this will widen my target audience to what I want it to be.

Industries

Below is a list of famous Documentary industries that I have been researching into, this should help me with my documentary as I could watch documentaries they have made and then have a decision on how I could make my documentary.

 

Discovery Channel

 

Discovery Channel (formerly The Discovery Channel) is an American satellite and cable specialty channel (also delivered via IPTV, terrestrial television and internet television in other parts of the world), founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. It provides documentary television programming focused primarily on popular science, technology, and history. In the U.S., the programming for the main Discovery network is primarily focused on reality television themes, such as speculative investigation (with shows such as MythBusters, Unsolved History, and Best Evidence), automobiles, and occupations (Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch); it also features documentaries specifically aimed at families and younger audiences.

 

Example documentaries from Discovery Channel:

The ultimate climb

The Da Vanici Code: The true story

Finding Atlantis

The true story of Saving Private Ryan

 

BBC Documentaries:

 

 

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcasting statutory corporation. Its main responsibility is to provide impartial public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. It is the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, with about 23,000 staff.The BBC is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London and has major production centres in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, London and Salford Quays and smaller production centres throughout the UK.

 

Example documentaries from the BBC:

The Secret Life of the Sun

Henry VII: Winter King 

The Star Trek story

14 Days

 

Channel 4 Documentaries:

 

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began transmission on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public body established in 1990, coming into operation in 1993. With the conversion of the Wenvoe transmitter group in Wales to digital on 31 March 2010, Channel 4 became an entirely UK-wide TV channel for the first time.

 

Example documentaries from Channel 4:

 

First dates

Secrets of the pickpockets and shoplifters

One born every minute

Food Unrapped

 

After watching 1 out of the each examples listed above (Finding Atlantis, The Star Trek Story and Secrets of the pickpockets and shoplifters) I have found that they all have a common trend of interviewing a person then cutting to another clip whilst they are still talking. This is very common in documentaries because it is used to keep the viewer interested by providing new things for them to view and hear. I will be using this technique in my documentary.

 

Biography's...

A biography or simply bio is a detailed description or account of a person's life. It entails more than basic facts (education, work, relationships, and death) - a biography also portrays a subject's experience of these events. Unlike a profile , a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality. Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life.

Examples of biographies in documentaries:

Senna:

Senna is a British 2010 documentary film that depicts the life and death of Brazilian motor-racing champion, Ayrton Senna, directed by Asif Kapadia. The film was produced by StudioCanal, Working Title Films and Midfield Films, and was distributed by the parent company of the latter two production companies, Universal Pictures.

The film's narrative focuses on Senna's racing career in Formula One, from his debut in the 1984 Brazilian Grand Prix to his death in an accident at San Marino in 1994, with particular emphasis on his rivalry with fellow driver Alain Prost. It relies primarily on archive racetrack footage and home video clips provided by the Senna family, rather than retrospective video interviews, and has no formal commentary.



Elvis Presley:

A short biography of Elvis Presley, whose new sound, sexually evocative dance moves, and abandon on stage catapulted his fame in the 1950s, starting with "Heartbreak Hotel."




I will try to base my documentary similar to the Elvis Preseley documentary because it is kept short yet contains the most important parts of his life, so in my documentary I will try to break down my grandfathers life into the most important parts.

What I want to happen in my Documentary...

For my documentary this year I have decided to interview/follow my Grandfather during he's day to day life. I feel that I would be able to create a great/interesting documentary about him because he has lived a interesting life and has experienced many things that can't be done today.

The type of documentary I will be doing will be observational because its the type of documentary where you follow the person around viewing and asking questions about their life. I thought I could be asking him questions about he's life whilst following him around and have short clips of a proper interview where he would be sitting down and I would be asking him questions. I also thought I could ask him about where he used to live and what it was like back when he was young then we would visit hes old neighbourhood and see if it has changed and what he remembers about it.

For location I thought that me and him could go back to where he used to live and what he remembers about it, then interview him in his study (office) and have him show me photos/items that relate to what e are talking about. I could also interview other people that have been with him all he's life and ask questions about him to find out more about his life.

My documentary can fall under the genre of a biography as it is following my grandfather around and asking him about past/current events in his life. I will research into some of the best biography documentaries and find out how they construct the documentary and see what camera shots and locations they use.

Documenatry Codes and Conventions

Conventions: Below is a list of conventions that are used in the making of a documentary.
 

Hand held Camera - encoding realism and ‘truth’

Narrative Voice Over - leading the audience into a preferred reading

Vox Pops and Interviews with experts / witnesses / participants

Often a shorter running time than non-fiction feature films

Inter cutting / Parallel Editing linking key scenes

Use of Archive footage to support filmed scenes

Information decoded by audience

Mediated culture – documentaries select and construct, thus encoding opinion and subjectivity

Selective editing crucial to constructing meaning

Often point of view with encoded ideology, preferred meaning

Use of Establishing Shot and Close Up

Observational, Interactive, Reflexive, Expository in format

3 act structure, closed investigative narrative

Often single stranded, linear – one subject is often the topic

Exploration of narrative themes, messages and values

Different purposes – to entertain, inform, educate, satirise, shock and to satisfy

Characters are often exaggerated stereotypes

 
Codes:
 

Voice over, Calm and clear delivery which holds the narrative together. Common to expository documentaries such as David Attenborough’s Planet Earth 

Archive Material i.e. Relevant material such as newspapers, photographs, website and video footage that backs up the points made by the documentary. Convention of documentary: all images presented must be seen as real by the audience. Editing and voice over alters the ‘reality’ we see.

Interviews, Authenticate points expressed in the documentary, makes it seem more reliable. Could use experts to gain more info or subjects to gain their point of view Participatory documentaries show the questions being asked, other categories tend to edit this out and keep the answers.

Use of Text/Graphics, text, titles and graphics are a quick and easy way to convey information such as dates, back stories etc. and tend to be believed unquestioningly.

Sound, mixture of diegetic/ non-diegetic sound such as voice overs and music added for effect.

Visual Coding ie. Mise-en-scene and props. e.g. Interviewing a lawyer wearing a suit sitting in an office will make it seem more reliable and realistic.

 
 
 

 

Participatory and Observational Documentary's

Participatory Documentary:

A participatory documentary is a form of participatory media in which a group or a single directro creates their own film. The idea behind this is that making a video is easy and accessible, and is a great way of bringing people together to explore issues, voice concerns or simply to be creative and tell stories.

It is therefore primarily about process, though high quality and accessible films (products) can be created using these methods if that is a desired outcome. This process can be very empowering, enabling a group or community to take their own action to solve their own problems, and also to communicate their needs and ideas to decision-makers and/or other groups and communities. As such, PV can be a highly effective tool to engage and mobilise marginalised people, and to help them to implement their own forms of sustainable development based on local needs.

Example:

Louis and the Nazis
Louis and the Nazis' is about an English man with Jewish heritage traveling around America interviewing racists, finding out there beliefs and views. He interviews people such as the former leader of the KKK and nazi skinheads.

Observational:

A observational documentary follows a person around to observe and film events that has happened in their life.

Example:

Hoop Dreams (1994)
This 3 hour epic shot over 5 years in Chicago follows the trials and tribulations of two talented and athletic black teens from poor families, trying to bust out of ghetto life and make it in the National Basketball League. Aside from the rich personal journey ensured by filming these young men throughout their formative years as they mature exponentially, the struggle of their families and the backdrops of their decaying neighbourhoods provides an incisive insight into underprivileged black urban existence.

 

Documentary Genres and Ideas

What is a documentary?:
 
A documentary is a broad term to describe a non-fiction movie that in some way "documents" or captures reality. Documentaries are often used to reveal an unusual, interesting or unknown angle. Topics are limited only by ones imagination. Documentary filmmakers are often motivated to make their films because they feel a particular story or viewpoint is not being (adequately) covered by mainstream media.

Documentary Genres:

Expository:
 

The aim of the expository documentary is to be descriptive and informative, or to provide a particular argument.  For example, it may celebrate a set of common values, or a particular lifestyle. Expository documentary is the 'classic' mode of documentary, which is now more commonly used in TV documentaries, where abstract information is conveyed via the voice over commentary.

 

Observational:

 

A observational documentary follows a person around to observe and film events that has happened in their life.

Ideas for my Documentary:

For my documentary I am thinking of doing a short film about either my grandfather or my uncle. Both of them lived and my uncle fought during WWII so I thought I could interview them about their experiences and about their life during this.

I could also follow them during their daily life and see what it is like being in their shoes, but also still ask them questions about what their life was like when they where younger and maybe compare it to what it is like now.