Evaluation Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

During our target audience research we discovered that there is a number of teenagers who stated they want tattoos ‘because they look good’. One aim of our documentary was to ensure that people do not jump into getting tattoos that not so long down the line they would end up regretting, and then possibly having to go through the process of having laser removal or another tattoo just to cover up the tattoo they no longer want on show.

The interviewees we used both admitted to having their first tattoos at a young age, and Matthew went on to state that some tattoos he has, he no longer desires to be on show and that he is looking at getting them covered. He explained to us that they were a mistake and his advice would be to think about what tattoo you get as it will be with you for the rest of your life.

The feedback we received about the documentary confirmed our thoughts that this honesty is helpful to young people looking at getting their first tattoo and that even someone who is very into tattoos, and who in fact is aspiring to become a tattoo artist, still encourages people to really make sure they do want it with them forever. Our feedback from the parents within our focus group said that they believed that this could be more effective at making teenagers think about getting tattoos rather than just their parents saying it to them, as the people in the documentary are not that much older than them, have been through it themselves and are speaking from experience, and aren’t just parents who don’t want them to get one.

The overall audience feedback for our documentary was positive. Majority liked the content, they liked the presenter and they overall found it enjoyable.

The negative aspect that came up was the sound and some camera angles. The sound is a well-known issue for us so I’m ignoring that, but it’s definitely useful feedback. The camera angle aspect was that they felt during the Lauren interviews he was too much in frame and she was somewhat lost in the background. However, audience feedback disagreed with us.  Another was the park scene on the swing, some people felt he was too far back and needed to be closer whereas others liked it and said it tied in with the subject of youth and tattoos. 

Audience feedback has been very valuable to us. We’ve used it to locate target areas for improvement, mainly sound, along with areas that were done well. This is the prime reason for audience feedback, obviously, but it’s also highlighted areas that we personally didn’t think worked, but the majority of people did like. An example of this being the positioning of interviewer and interviewee inside the pub. When we showed my documentary to close friends, a number of them liked it. One said “She’s clearly the focus and he’s not too over-bearing on the shot. I think it works”.

Another viewer/friend of ours said that she liked the inserted news story, but again, had problems with audio, to the point where her ears began to hurt! Other than that, during our discussion she said she enjoyed viewing and watching it.

This feedback highlights the sound issue, but it also highlights other areas that was done well. It also helped settle our minds on some issues that we thought didn't work out, but in actual fact the audience liked.


We've also asked friends of mine to take some questionnaires for me so we can get feedback in a different format and on our ancillary tasks. They also highlight things that we can look into making sure we amed if we were to do this again.

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