Research: 3 Minute Wonder

What is a 3 minute wonder?

 A three minute wonder is a short documentary which can be any form of documentary which shows your ambitions or skills in life. It gives people a chance to express how they feel about what they do or what they have seen. Three minute wonders are shown on Channel Four before a programme starts so people are inclined to watch it.

What is the aim and purpose of a three minute wonder?

The aim and purpose of a three minute wonder is to give the audience an insight to the things that happen around us and also things that they may of not known before. It's purpose is to try and get us involved with these things that we are shown or to inform us about things we may not of known before. 

What sort of topic would you expect to see on a three minute wonder?

 I expect to see a factual documentary or a personal documentary which would mostly be expository, observational or interactive if the director is looking for a resolution. I think these topics of documentaries would be shown because it could relate personally to some audience members and interest us to remember what we learnt. The forms of documentary would be used to make it visually interesting or shocking that we want to learn more. These forms also give us a connection to the documentary because most of them like interactive has a voice over telling us things in their views.  

The Three Minute Wonders:

1. ''Untitled''

 

This one I didn't really like because of the topic in this documentary because I didn't like the art work that they were showing. But what I did like was the fact that you got other people's opinion on the art work. Some of them liked it but others don't and I tend to not like it because I feel like so many other people put time and effort into work and then that kind of art is shown which doesn't seem like effort was put into it. What I have learn't from watching this is that not everybody thinks that art is stupid and it means something to them whether you think differently. This documentary is an observational documentary because it has no voice over and it also breaks the fourth wall by hearing the camera man.

2. Blek le Rat

I like this one because you get to know a bit about him and what he loves to do and we as the audience get to understand why he loves to do what he does. It also gives us knowledge of things that we might not know. Through watching this I have learnt a bit about Blek but I have also learnt that being an artist can be tough because not everyone will like your work. I think this is an expository documentary because Blek is doing a voice over and he is informing us.

 

3. This is Our Youth: Carrot Crew

 

This one is my favourite because of the way it is performed. As this is a performative documentary it would usually inform you with facts as well but it is still able to raise issues like the fact that more teenagers would probably rather a bag of crisps then food. So what This is Our Youth does is make up a carrot gang which is probably to promote healthier food. From this documentary I learnt that more people should advertise healthier food in this way because the target audience are teenagers so it might get them to chnage their diet to healthier food.

 

Market Research

For primary Market research I went to the TV listings  at TV Guides and clicked on the documentary tab where it then came up with all the documentaries that are shown at a specific time. I decided to look at Channel 4 from Friday to Sunday and Channel 5 from Friday to Sunday. The results I got shocked me because I thought there would be more documentaries shown on each channel. When I looked at the documentaries shown on Channel 4 from Friday to Sunday I found only one documentary which was on a Friday at 10:30 and lasted 55 minutes. When I looked at Channel 5 I found that over the course of a weekend 245 minutes were documentary. The time when these documentaries occured the most was at 3-4am but more documentaries were shown on a Friday.  No Channel showed the documenaries at peak time which occurs during the afternoon on saturday and sunday.

I looked on the Broadcast Audience Research Board website and found out what the top 30 viewed programmes are on the most viewed channels. I looked on Channel 5 and found out that the most viewed programme from the 2nd March is a documentary called CAN'T PAY? WE'LL TAKE IT AWAY which had 2.06 million viewers. The third most watched programme on Channel 5 during the week was The Hotel Inspector which is an interactive documentary and had 1.44 million views. When I looked on Channel 4 One born every minute which is an expository documentary had 3.18 million views. The third most watched programme was another documentary called 24 HOURS IN A & E. Finding out this information I have found that even though not many programmes are documentary they are more popular with viewers.