Similar documentaries and potential target audience. Presentation preparation.

"An inconvinient truth" is an example of an expository documentary which follows classic genre conventions which we will attempt to follow in the making of our documentary. These include trying to persuade the audience to agree with one point of view based on appealing to a common sense response using logical arguement,  a voice over; and incorportaing images into extracts.
"Hot Chocolate" is an example of a similar documentary about skateboarding which is a half skateboarding film and half documentary on the life of skaters. It incorporates a lot of film of skateboarders skating into the documentary which we would also like to do in order to engage the audience visually.
"Slammed" is a skateboarding documentary which tells the reader of the physical pain and hard work involved in being a skilled skater. Although it is unlike our documentary, in that it showcases personal journeys and ours involves exposing negative opinions of the public and in particular, authority towards the skater community; it has edited into it a lot of footage of people skateboarding and cutaways, which we would also be interested in incorporating into our film.
Another documentary which is on a similar subject to ours is "freedom of space". This documentary shows the nature of skateboarding culture and, in particular, skateboadring in public spaces. It is similar to ours in that it talks of the access which everyday skateboaders have to using public space to skate, and the way in which public spaces have been skateboarder-proofed, thus refelcting the anti-establishment stereotypes and assumptions which the authorities hold of skateboarders.
From research of similar documentaries, I have noticed that the target audience seem to be mainly from the skateboarding community. From further research, it has emerged that the viewers of skateboarding documetaries are often from middle class backgrounds, between the ages of 14-23 and are highly interested in skateboarding as a lifestyle or a hobby. From this I think that a potential target audience for our documentary could reflect this : young boys from middle class backgrounds who are highly interested in skateboarding. However, I do not think that our target audience has to be limited to skateboarders, as I have seen that many viewers of similar documentaries do not infact skateboard, but are aspirational skateboarders, because of this I think that our documentary will be very interesting to younger males (12-16) who are interested in potentially taking up skateboarding. Our skateboarder interviewees are mainly older (17-20), so this may possibly be aspirational to younger males, particuarly those who are able to identify with the programme in some way or who take a keen and regular interest in skateboarding.
Sorcha