market research

1. Market research
Georgia Dodsworth

2. Crime scene: The vanishing at the Cecil
hotel
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20XX
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The Netflix documentary ‘The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel’ is a limited series
of episodes that follow the disappearance of Elisa Lam while she stayed at
the Cecil hotel. This documentary is a 4 part Netflix series from the director
Joe Berlinger, who also created the series ‘ Conversations with a killer: The
Ted Bundy Tapes’. This series follows the stories of guests who have stayed
at the hotel and they share their experiences from when they stayed at the
hotel. The documentary stayed at number 1 for 16 days straight and has an
audience score of 27% on rotten tomatoes. With the demographic many had
different reviews both good and bad, many saying that the series was
dragged out over 4 episodes and that was no need to dragged out over that
many episodes. The episodes covered Lams disappearance but also
focuses on the treatment of the LAs homeless and show how the
government treats them. The documentary is aimed at people who enjoy
watching true crime, in a 2010 study it found that women enjoy reading true
crime books more than men. For example, the majority of the audience who
watch the Sony Crime Channel in the UK are 80-85% female and the
audience for the All Killa No Filla podcast are around the same percentages.

3. Demographics-Cecil Hotel
When filming crime documentaries/ films directors will follow specific codes and conventions to keep their
audience engaged throughout the whole film. One of the codes that they will have to think about is their camera
work, camera angles will change how the audience sees the product and change the atmosphere in the scene.
The camera angles most used in crime tv is low- angled shots, high- angled shots and establishing shots. Low
angle shots are used to show an object or person seem more powerful as they will be perceived as larger than
they are which will show higher importance and power. In contrast to low angled shots, high angled shots are
used to make people and objects seem smaller than they are. By looking down on the subjects they seem more
vulnerable and weaker. Establishing shots are used to set the scene and allows the audience to see the location
and the environment of the crime documentary.
The demographic for The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel would be around 16- 35, I believe this as many people
have a fascination with true crime and are interested in how these events unfold. Due to the high demand for
true crime stories to be put out there and to raise awareness through documentaries. The audience wish to
understand what was going through the killer's mind and see what was going through the family's mind during
the hard times.
With this genre of documentary, I believe that the age, gender, education and other factors are important when
considering the target audience for the show. This documentary is targeted more towards teenagers and young
adults as it shown that that age categories are more intrigued and interested by true crime.
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4. Sunderland Til I Die
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Sunderland Til I Die is a sporting documentary series produced by Fulwell
73, it follows the events around the England football club Sunderland A.F.C.
Released in December 2018, the first series follows Sunderland's 2017-18
season when the club was playing in the EFL Championship having been
relegated from the Premier League the season prior. After the success with
the first season a second season was then promised by Netflix. The second
season followed the 2018-19 season which followed the club under their
new manager Steward Donald, this series was released in April 2020. A
third season has not been confirmed however the producers have not ruled
out the possibility.
The production company Fulwell 73 expressed interest on buying
Sunderland in June 2017 shortly before the commencement of filming, but
withdrew, citing the demands of their production business. In December
2018 Pearlman and Turner promoted ‘Sunderland Til I die’ on the Totally
Football League show. The filming commenced in June 2017 with the
exception that Sunderland would be challenging for a promotion back into
the premier league. The manager at the time Chris Coleman admitted to
being uncomfortable with the filming arrangements. Coleman described the
constant attention as being unnatural as it was all new to him and the club.

5. Demographics- Sunderland Til I Die
Sunderland Til I Dies main demographic will be based of age, place of living and gender as the
documentary Is targeting mainly football fans who support the North- East club ‘ Sunderland
AFC’. This documentaries purpose is to show the footballs club journey throughout the current
football season and involve some the cities history throughout the documentary. Age is one of
the main demographics as I believe this documentary is targeted towards 25-40 year olds as it
shows the past as well as the present football players and the history of the club which the
older supporters may remember and reminisce on while watching the show. Gender is also a
large demographic when making this documentary as the majority of the viewers of the
documentary were male. This may have allowed the production company to target their product
more to males rather than the female audience.
When making this documentary ‘Fulwell 73’, the production company. Decided to keep it very
close to home as Fulwell is an area in Sunderland and he ‘73’ element of the name of the
company comes from 1973 which is when Sunderland AFC won the FA cup final which is the
last major trophy that they have won. Leo Pearlman, Gabe Turner, and Ben Turner were all
Sunderland A.F.C. fans, which are the creators of Fulwell 73.
The documentary shows the training and progression that the club was making throughout the
different football seasons. The producers were not visually involved much throughout the
documentary which allowed the club and the managers to be the key focus in the documentary
and allows the fans to get a closer insight into the club without the producers being involved.
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6. The Social Dilemma
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The social dilemma documentary is about the effects that social media and technology has had on today
society/ the younger generations. The documentary focuses on different social media platforms and past
employees of large, well known companies.
In the social dilemma documentary it features multiple interviews with former employees of large
companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter who talk about what it was like working for the company
and giving inside secrets to how the company works.
In the interviews the interviewees express their fears of how artificial intelligence has a large role in socia
media and have a large influence on society The documentary explains how and which social media
platforms are run the artificial intelligence which they have no control over and how they can use and sel
your information to target advertisements towards you specifically.
The documentary was released on Netflix on September 9th 2020, as this was released in lockdown it
gained a lot of attention quick and allowed people to see the reality of social media platforms. When
releasing the documentary it was perfect timing as everyone was on their phones during lockdown as
there was nothing to do. By gaining attention so quick, the documentary was seen over 38 million times i
just the first 28 days of its release date. The film also dives int the different manipulation techniques that
the companies use to buy their products, download a certain app, make you feel a certain way etc. Many
of the interviewees expressed how this can have a large impact on the users mental health and can often
lead to depression and they have seen an increase in suicide rates in young adults and teenagers. They
also expressed their opinion on how things need to change within social media to help the users and to
stop businesses from manipulating young people through social media.
When the documentary released some of the large social media platforms released statements and
voiced their opinions on the documentary. Facebook released a statement saying ‘ it gives a distorted
view of how social media platforms work to create a convenient scapegoat for what are difficult and
complex societal problems’. Another industry response that was released was from Mozilla which is
another large platform that former employees featured on the documentary to talk about their experience
at the company. Ashley Boyd and Audrey Hingle note that the ‘ making, release and popularity of The
Social Dilemma represents a major milestone towards the goal of building a movement of internet users
who understand social medias impact and who demand better from platforms’. They also talked about
how the film could have benefited from featuring ore diverse voices within the documentary to have
different opinions.

7. Demographics- The Social Dilemma
The Social Dilemmas main demographic is young people within the age group of 15-25 years old as this is
the main demographic that use social media platforms daily. The documentaries main purpose is to show
young people the effect that social media has and how it may effect their future and the damage that it may
cause. One of the documentaries main purpose is to also show the effects that mobile phones and social
media has on peoples mental health.
15-2 year olds is their main demographic because they want to show the main demographic what is going on
behind their favourite social media apps and allow them to gain a better understanding on what is
happening behind the scenes. The creators of The Social Dilemma want to show the younger generation
how it may effect their future if we don’t change the media and how it may become worse if we don’t
understand what is going on behind our screens. In modern day society social media plays a very large role
in our everyday life and many people cant go a day without it, whether that be for communication or simply
to cure boredom. However, social media can seriously damage our mental health and cause depression,
anxiety, eating disorders, body image problems etc. One of he main problems with social media is how the
younger generation compare themselves to creators and asking themselves why they don’t look like them or
live the life they live. This has caused self harm rates to increase, mainly in young girls, from 2009- 2015
females aged 15-19 were admitted to hospital with non- fatal self harm injuries, these hospital admissions
rose by 62%. Girls aged 10-14 were also admitted into hospital with non- fatal hospital injuries however this
rose by 189%, one of the causes of this was by comparing themselves to their favourite models or creators
and becoming unhappy with their own body as they didn’t look like them.
Age and gender are the main demographic with this documentary as it will affect the younger generation
more as they use social media more frequently than the older generations.
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8. Compare & Contrast
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C O M PA R I N G
When comparing the three documentaries that I have chosen they are all have
some similarities, whether this be having interviews with people who are mainly
involved with the subject or recreating scenes: football matches, crime scene.
With this similarity it allows the audience to become more engaged with the
content of the documentary, by including interviews it allows the audience to feel
like they are more involved with the documentary and allows them to gain more
knowledge on the situation when listening to the professionals.
I think that the first and the last documentary are very similar as they both have a
lot of interviews and cut scenes. The goal of both of the documentaries is to
inform, by that I mean The Social Dilemmas main goal was to inform the audience
about the effect that social media can have on us and what different corporations
are doing behind the scenes, and the Disappearance and the Cecil hotel was
made to spread awareness about the case and the history of the hotel. By using
the dramatic re-enactment scenes that both documentaries used it allowed for a
visual representation of what was going on and make it feel more like a drama
series rather than real life.
C O N T R A S T
With the three documentaries I have chosen there is a lot of
contrasting factors as they are all talking about different subjects and
how they have affected different areas of our society.
With each documentary they are a different genre: Crime, sport and
social media. However, they are all able to get the same message
across to the audience, and they are all able to engage their own
audience by how it has been carefully edited and target towards their
target audience.
Each documentary is widely different to each other as they all target
different audiences: football fans and crime fans. Each documentary
is also able to make their viewers feel a certain way about what they
are watching and create different theories about each documentary.
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