Case study - How does the Sex Pistols album art appeal to their target audience?

Narrative structure

For the planning for our music we wanted to make a narrative that could be relatable but also can be interpreted in many ways. We first looked at a linear narrative. This is where the story is in chronological order and there is a climax and a resolution at the end. We also looked at a closed structure where the story ends satisfactorily and therefore has closure as we felt this would allow the story to be memorable. We also looked at a circular narrative and this is where the story starts and ends in the same place. With that structure what we could do is have the male character be in bed and drink a spiked drink and then go into a dream state and we could understand through the story why someone would do that to him.

In my music video i used a linear structure that allowed me to tell the story from beginning to end with a resolution at the end to create a relatable and meaningful story. The use of other techniques such as flashbacks are used to also tell the story without giving too much away. The use of the girl having more power than the male character at the beginning than male character creates a disequilibrium and this theme is used throughout the video but it changes at the end where an equilibrium is formed as the two characters finally meet creating a climax to the narrative. Below are other techniques used in my music video.  

Inter textual refernces

Many other media texts influenced my work for different reasons. The use of a mask was taken from texts such as The Purge or the band Bats For Lashes who use masks in different ways but both use them very effectively. The mask was used as a way to show how people can change when a break up happens and how you can no longer recognise them. I also wanted to include an aspect of the psychedelic genre in my music video and this can be a reference to the film Enter The Void or Asap Rock's song LSD where his video is a direct reference to the film Enter The Void.

The Purge

The Purge is a film made in 2013 in America and the plot is about legalising crime for a day. This is a horror film and that was not the element that i wanted to take into my music video but the aspect of characters wearing masks was. The use of the mask in this film is a negative and scary object that allows the imagination to run wild because you do not know who is behind the mask. This element of mystery and creating an enigma was what i wanted to include in my music video. The song 'What's a girl to do' by Bats For Lashes uses characters riding on a bike wearing masks while the artist sings. This creates a mystery and in their video it is

Bats For Lashes

the men who are wearing the masks and the woman who is not so we decided to turn that around and make the girl be chased still but she is the one wearing the mask. This then helped us create the element of love being something that can change us forever. However in both of these texts the mask creates a dangerous and scary aspect which i did not want to take into my music video so to combat this i the locations show what kind of story this was and the use of the dark and gritty locations in the film and music video crate the sinister view of the mask so a more colourful location would make that representation no longer apply.

Enter the Void

For the psychedelic element i took inspiration from the film Enter the Void which is a 2009 film where the plot is about life and death but through the eyes of someone who is on psychedelic drugs. The film uses a lot of editing that makes the audience feel they are seeing a dream like state and on a trip with the character who has taken the drugs. The use of this was something that i wanted to take into my video as the song has a part of it that links with the psychedelic genre which means i wanted to put in the effects which are generic conventions of music videos for the psychedelic genre. I wanted to introduce a dream state into my music video and i

Asap Rocky's song 'LSD'

wasn't sure how to incorporate it in. I had seen it be done in the film and didn't know if it would work for a music video. I found Asap Rocky's song 'LSD' where his video is based on the film Enter the Void. I took elements from this where i used effects and bright colours to look like the person is in a dream and this is a generic convention of the psychedelic genre so i feel that i could take that reference from the film and music video and make it into my own. The dream state would be where the male character had been given the drug of love my the female character and is in a dream state that revolves around her.    









   

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 When collecting audience feedback i decided to use a questionnaire. A questionnaire allowed me to get quantitative data that i could then easily put into graphs and tables. I could then analyse the data easier because if i had qualitative data then i could not have analysed it in a data format thus making the audience feedback not useful.I aimed to ask 15 people and this was to try and get more reliable research. 

I chose questions such as favourite genre of music and this was to see if there was a connection between people liking my music video and print production and them also liking the same genre of music as my product. I also asked questions on how old people are and their gender. This was to allow me to see any correlation between if a particular age liked my product more or if a certain gender did as well. Problems that i faced in the research was that asking friends and family about your product may give misleading information as they will put down what they think you want however this doesn't give valid information but i feel this was not an issue in the end as my information was well rounded.      

One of the first correlations in my results i saw was the link between age and the in which they rated my media product. The older the person the less they rated my music video and my print production. The people who were aged between 25-30 rated my CD cover at a 2 out of 5. I think that this is because of the age of my target audience. The genre of music i have, which is Indie-psychedelic, has a young target audience who are on average around 18/19 years old and therefore people who are not in that demographic are not going to understand the genre and therefore feel like the product is not good and looks unprofessional. I also could link this with the question for how well does the music video match its genre as the people who answered not at all were the people in the age range 25-30. From this i can understand that if the genre of the music video or the CD cover is not obvious then the whole production and overall aesthetic of the production can look unprofessional. I would combat this by making the genre more clear throughout my production to allow people who do not know the genre particularly well still be able to recognise what genre my product is. 
I also saw a correlation between people liking my product and understanding it and what their favourite genre of music is. I asked people many aged between 18-25 and the favourite genre was indie and this had a straight link to how they rated my whole production. When asked how do you rate the music video out of 5 the people who answered 4 out of 5 were prominently in the age group 18-25 and this shows how if you are a fan of the indie genre then my product is more appalling to you. This links to my point before of how i could improve my product, i feel that i tried to challenge too many conventions of the indie genre and therefore without knowledge of the genre the production seems to not fit a genre therefore making the whole productions quality go down. If i was to do the whole thing again i would stick to conventions a lot more and not just make a video and CD cover that i want but one that would appeal to many audiences. However people who do know the genre felt like my production was a strong and professional production so a strength that i found from my questionnaire was that my product did appeal to people who were a fan of the genre.  
I found that one third of people who saw my music video did not understand the narrative of the music video. This was something that was not down to age or gender. This is something that i would improve if i was to do the whole production again as i have noticed that the narrative is hard to grasp. However this could be linked to Stuart Halls audience reception theory where audiences read a particular text according to their cultural upbringing. This shows that people may not have understood the narrative because they could not relate to it. Although i could make the narrative easier to understand i feel that the narrative and issues raised in the music video are out across in the way i intended however i could of made more hints at what i was trying to get across in the video.
Question 7 asked if people would buy my album based on the way it looks and around three quarters said they would and this is a positive for me as it shows that i created a CD cover that was stylish and professional. People said that they would buy it even if they were not a fan of the genre which shows that i have made a CD cover that can appeal to any demographic. 
Question 5 asked people if the CD cover and poster were promoting the same product and most people stated that it was. This is a positive as it shows how people thought i had a good symmetry between my poster and CD cover. 

In conclusion using a questionnaire helped me understand my audience and how i could have improved my work to allow more people to like and understand my product. I found that overall i would make the narrative of my music video easier to understand and conform to more conventions of the indie genre to them allow more people to understand my production. I feel like i reached my target audience in my questionnaire so it helped me to understand what they wanted to be improved as they were the people who i wanted to rate my product.     
        

Audience profile

Fonts

Choosing the right font is essential to making the CD cover, poster and the rest of the album look professional and fit the genre of the music. For my genre of Indie-psychedelic I wanted to have a font that was simple and didn't make the whole thing look out of place and unprofessional. I wanted the font to fit with the artwork I was trying to achieve which is a abstract and minimalist style of art so a thin font where the kerning is fairly big would make for a professional font for my print production.

Letter Gothic std

The first font I chose is Letter Gothic std. This font is one that was already on word for fonts. The font is a simple yet effective font that has a fairly large kerning in between the letters. This font also not very bold and that is the type of font i am looking for as i don't want the font to distract from and artwork on the print production. The font also has good typography as it looks very appealing on screen and therefore will make the whole production look professional. However this font could be seen as too childish and not fitting the indie genre. The use of the serif font for the indie genre means it could make the font stand out as being out of place and unprofessional.    

The next font i was looking at is called Neon and this font is strong as it would make for a good logo for the band. It has a distinct look with the white borders around it. The font could be used on the poster as well as the CD cover to make a recognisable logo for my band. However the font has very small kerning and this means that the letters are too close together and therefore i feel it makes the font look childish and unprofessional. The font is too bold and would distract from anything else that is on the page.

I also looked at the font Caviar Dreams and i feel like this font had the perfect typography as it can not only be a font that is used but can be turned into a logo that will create a distinct look for the band. The font is a sans serif font which then makes it look more professional as i feel that the indie-psychedelic genre would not have a font that has serifs on it because it would look childish. Also the font has a reasonable kerning to it which will fit the minimalist/abstract style of art i am wanting to achieve in my print production. However this font could be seen as unprofessional because of the letter 'e' which could be too distracting and not fit the genre.

My target audience