Katie Pearl gathered extensive audience feedback throughout the process of creating her advanced portfolio, including feedback on her documentary ideas, edited footage, documentary title and message, and ancillary products like a documentary advert and magazine listings. She used questionnaires, focus groups, and messaging apps to collect this feedback at various stages of production. The feedback helped her determine the focus of her documentary, improve her editing, ensure her products adhered to conventions, and learn what her target audience preferred. It enabled her to make beneficial changes to her work and create the most effective final products.

1. Evaluation Question 2: What have
you learned from your audience
feedback?
By Katie Pearl

2. I have accumulated a large amount of audience
feedback throughout my learning journey of
creating my advanced portfolio. This feedback
was from both my focus group and members of
my target audience on their opinions and ideas
through different platforms during the different
stages including research, editing and production.

3. The very first piece of
audience feedback I
gathered was during the
research and planning
stages of my documentary
before I had begun filming. I
made a questionnaire on
Google Forms to gather
whether my ideas were
going in the right direction
and whether my focus group
approved of my ideas and to
have their opinions put into
place for the first time. The
questions in this

4. I had four creative ideas
to base my documentary
on and this questionnaire
concluded to have the
theme on ‘moving from
London to Leigh’ as it
received the majority of
the votes, with a couple
of votes on ‘what it is like
to live in London’ which
was why I also included a
segment of the
documentary on this as
the two topics link nicely
whilst giving the
audiences what they

5. The next piece of audience feedback I gathered
was by asking my focus group to write their
thoughts on the first minute of edited footage on
paper which I photographed and added to my
blog. From this audience feedback I learned what
was effective and what I needed to improve. The
improvements included adding music with
voiceovers which I did in the first minute and then
also throughout the whole documentary extract. It
was helpful to gain feedback on what my focus

6. After this, I made another
questionnaire on Google
Forms and this was sent out
to not only my focus group
but also people in my target
audience to gain feedback
from a larger population,
designed to gain as many
responses as possible. The
questionnaire had questions
based on the progress of
the editing of my
documentary. This was to
ensure I was achieving
targeting the preferred

7. 100% of the feedback
stated that the pace of
editing fitted well with the
documentary genre; that
‘London to Leigh is an
effective title; the
documentary has a strong
brand identity and the
documentary has a clear
message. 87.5% also said
that they believe my
documentary adheres to
the codes and conventions
as one person had no
knowledge on the codes

8. Following this questionnaire, I continued editing
my documentary whilst beginning the research
and planning for my ancillary products, starting
with the documentary advert. I used a different
platform to gain the feedback I needed as I sent a
message to my focus group on Whatsapp,
requesting their opinion on which image I should
use for my documentary advert. I sent six images
which I numbered, each of these were
aesthetically pleasing although I wanted to
understand which one would appeal to my target
audience the most. All of the responses stated

10. The third questionnaire I made was the most
detailed and designed to extract as much
information as possible from my focus group and
target audience. I received over 20 responses,
with the questions being about the documentary
and both ancillary products. There was many
questions on what looks effective, whether they
adhere to codes and conventions and what can
be improved and I received a large amount of
feedback which was the most helpful.

12. From the questions I asked, I learned that my
documentary was very informative and nearly
everyone stated they would definitely watch the
rest of the documentary (as one person said
‘probably’ and the other said ‘if I was interested in
housing I would’). I included the article which I
was adding to my double page spread magazine
listings and 100% of responses believed the
article for the listings outlines the documentary
accordingly. I asked for ideas of an image to use
for the background of the listings and I learned
that the majority of the audience wanted to see an

13. After receiving audience
feedback from my third
questionnaire, I made the
changes to the
documentary and planned,
research, edited and
produced my double page
spread magazine listings
and wanted feedback on it
from my focus group. I
gathered this information
via a text message by
sending them the image of
the listings and asking
them for their thoughts. I

14. My last questionnaire was created to gain
audience feedback on my finished productions
with last details for improvements and ensuring
all the products are professional, look
aesthetically pleasing and have a clear brand
identity. I sent this questionnaire to my focus
group and target audience and it included five
questions which were a range of multiple choice
and longer answer questions.

15. As a result of this questionnaire I learned what my
target audience prefer and what they
understand in terms of media text due to their
cultural competencies. The responses
concluded that 100% of my focus group believe
that the images on my listings are effective and
100% believe that the layout and content of my
listings fit codes and conventions. I also need to
decide which title to use between two for my
documentary and this feedback enabled me to
make the decision. I lastly asked for the
improvements ideas for my documentary and
magazine listings. This helped me learn what to
change and how to make my products better.