Unit 6: Critical Approaches to Creative Media Products

Sons of Anarchy: What’s the Target Audience The target audience for sons of anarchy is between the age group of 18-49 years. Demographics: 55% Male and 45% Female Gradual 10-15% increase in ratings for each of the seasons. Women’s ratings for ages between 18-49 and 18-34 rose to 35% and 43% between the last two seasons of the television series. Fans of actors such as “Charlie Hunman” “Tommy Flanagan” and “Ron Perlman”.

Images/Words: The producers of the show use various images of the “Sons of Anarchy” logo that is seen in the intro of the television series at the beginning of every episode. They also use images of the main actors such as “Charlie Hunman” and “Tommy Flanagan” to grab the viewers’ attention and to pursue them to carry on watching the series further. Also, combined with these images they will use the name of the actors alongside the pictures and use certain words as “presents” and different dates to when the next episodes are airing live for example “Saturday October 25, 2014”. In the logo for the television series it features the grime-reaper in the middle between the font texts. This gives suggesting of fear. The members of the cast usually wear black, white and blue, as these colours are more masculine.

Colors: The main colours that are used for Sons of Anarchy are black and white. As the television series is based around a motorcycle club, black is used to give a dark feel and masculine feel to the show as the show is more targeted towards more males than females. Members of the motorcycle club are seen to wear more black and white clothing with leather jackets that shows the reoccurring logo.

Captions and Fonts: In the television series phrases such as "Fear the Reaper" and "Ride Free or Die" are used through out the series to give a connection to the audience whilst communicating about the show on social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. Producers use these media platforms to get feedback and views of their media product “sons of anarchy” from the audience viewing at home. By using ‘hashtags’ these get clear responses of what people think of the show and the characters.

Narrative/Dialogue: The narrative for the television series “Sons of Anarchy” involves two parallel plot lines that inter-twine and overlap: it follows the life of Jackson “Jax” Teller and his immediate family while he deals with the SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original), the motorcycle club have various difficult issues to deal with rival gangs and authorities. The narrative has controversial issues such as drugs, violence, sex/rape etc. that are highlighted in nearly every day life. At the very beginning of every episode there is a play back on what happened on pervious episodes, then when the new episode beginnings a narration of Jax Teller aka Charlie Hunman, speaking about his father’s pervious life and procrastinating his own. Majority of the plot is based around the relationship between Jax and Tara, This gives the viewers something else to keep in mind whilst watching the television series.

Reasons why audiences’ watch Sons of Anarchy: There are many reasons why people choose to view Sons of Anarchy than other televisions series and here are few of these reasons: Heavy appeal to values such as family and loyalty Violent and cruel nature Social environment Pervious Seasons are on Netflix Pass time Fans of Charlie Hunman and Ron Perlman

Codes and Conventions Sons of Anarchy is a “television series” meaning that the main plot or narrative continues and is usually resolved at the end of the season, it contains key characters and plotlines over the various seasons. The use of camera work is affective throughout the show to match the storylines/plots. It’s conventional to use close up shots on the characters to show emotion. The music in “Sons of Anarchy” is used to symbolize various different emotions in each of the seasons e.g. from pervious episodes the music will be quite tense to build up the suspense for the next episode. The setting for the television series is conventional as it suits what the show is about. It’s set in California in a fictional town called “Charming” where different conflicts/problems seem to arise with the police.

Market Research: Producers use various different methods for their market research such as Focus groups, questionnaires, surveys and online feedback from social media sites. These different types of methods help the producers to gather information on what the audience think of the television series and if they would continue watching the series or not.