Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Friday, 19 January 2018
Marketing/ Circulation
Essay on
Marketing/Circulation
Walt Disney are part of the big
six and are a huge multi-national mass media. They are hugely known around the
world. They are one of the largest
conglomerates in the world. They have many relationships with Walmart and
McDonalds which uses synergy to further both of the company’s needs. McDonalds
have marketed Disney through their happy meals especially kids. Disney have very large stakes in Hulu, and own the film
rights towards Marvel, Pixar and Lucas film, with the latter being purchased
from George Lucas in a multibillion dollar transaction. Disney usually make
around 2/3 Marvel films a year, 1 or 2 pixar films and then 1 or 2 live
animation remakes. These are carefully timed
for their target audience, to bring in the most revenue and the biggest
interest. I.e. Pixar films typically happen during the holidays, as the kids
are able to view them.
They attracted an older audience
by making the film very much action filled and thriller like, creating a new
sense of adventure and fright among many audiences. Disney also used Kenzo to
market it as they are a huge well known company which many people would
recognise. The film also appeals to children because it plays on the old one A
LOT bringing back childhood memories. By adapting the film to the older
audience, for example, adding more scenery which appeals to older audience
members, the film can be marketed to a wider audience. Disney were also able to
make use of ‘Star Appeal’ to a much greater extent as popular actors and cast
members are employed to make audiences. In the modern day, the original film is
being marketed to older audiences through the Disney Vault system, which
‘removes’ Disney films from retail outlets until certain times of the year,
where it is re-released as an ‘enhanced’ edition for a much higher price. The original trailer is upbeat and light hearted with a musical aspect that makes you want to sing along. This has been done to appeal to younger audiences. The new trailer has a more sinister and darker feel to it. By making a live action film the animals appear to be real adding a danger aspect to it. This has been done in order to appeal to not only the younger generations but the older generation who watched the original.
In 1967, Disney’s music and songs were written for the film in the early stages of creating the film. This suggests that there was huge importance placed on the music considering the music is what makes the film so memorable.
In the 2016 live-action remake, there is a huge importance placed on the star-studded cast, as they were one of the main aspects focused on throughout the marketing. All of the posters of the characters had their names like Scarlett Johanneson.
The 1967 poster appears a lot brighter and colourful because their attention was drawn towards a younger target audience. In the 2016 poster, the characters all appear more serious and the colours are darker and there are more shadows. Both posters seem to give us an insight as to what the character’s personalities are. We can also see the relationships between each character on both posters and we can see which characters are the ones which might not have such a liking for Mowgli.
The Disney vault is where movies are placed, resulting in them being no longer distributed or on sale. This means that people can no longer go into a shop and buy them, until after a few years or more when Disney decide to re-release them. The “Vault” is the place where these movies are kept safe and store for future uses and releases if necessary.
The film was released on BHS in 1999 due to DVD not being a thing back then and it was one of the first films released on DVD. Disney have had many re-releases and various successes,
This is because they found a formula that worked and played on it making films that they knew were safe and people would go watch which would without much effort make them a lot of money in a short space of time.
To conclude, marketing has obviously changed. You could
argue that with its licensing deals with Kenzo and its focus on aggressively
targeting a secondary audience to build profits on the back of a family
audience who always turn out for Disney films you could argue that Disney have
grown smarter and more precise with their planning, however we must also not
forget that there are still lots of similarities between the two eras, for
example the use of stars and red carpet premieres to promote a film remains in
place as does the creation of character posters and trailers as the fundamental
basics of Disney marketing so to me what
is forgotten is that Disney as a
conglomerate have always been a master at marketing, it is why they are the
number one entertainment conglomerate in the world and yes some of the practices have changed but
the whole reason why there was new version of The Jungle Book in the first
place was because of the success of the first film, a success driven by an
effective marketing campaign.
Distribution
Essay on Distribution
Paragraph 1 – Disney as conglomerate
Disney is a huge media
conglomerate that is part of the Big Six. This means that it is part of the 6
highest media companies in the united states, The Big six include 20 century
fox, paramount, Universal, Warner Bros, Sony and 20th century fox.
Disney produces films such as pirates of the
Caribbean and toy story it also owns tv companies such as Pixar and Marvel, which allows them to expand further
into animation, and make superhero films such as the Avengers.
Distribution is changing the
modern world because it is expanding to many other companies to get their films
distributed. Such as getting shops to sell it and food chains for example, to
give out gifts to promote it. Overall, Disney have a wide range of channels of which they can use
for distributing films and promoting them. For example, as Disney own Fox now,
who also own a large stake in Sky, Disney films can be freely promoted on the
Sky Digital satellite platform to a relatively wide audience. Furthermore,
plans to open their very own streaming service also allow them to freely
distribute their films, alongside licenses which may originate from other
studios. Disney also have access to more conventional distribution types, such
as DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs through their coveted Disney Vault system to gain
profits on films released many years ago.
Throughout the 1980s/90s, Disney
was re-releasing classic films such as Snow White and Bambi through a seven-year
cycle. They would release new editions, like bronze or gold editions, improving
the quality and adding exclusive behind the scenes footage to the DVDs.
Recently, in the 2010s, they have had to become more creative and therefore
create live-action remakes of their classic films like Cinderella, Maleficent
and Beauty and the Beast.
The Jungle Book was first
released on April 15th 2016 in America, before spreading around to
multiple countries around the world. Jungle Book was released on a teaser
trailer to encourage the audience to want to go and watch it.
In the opening day the jungle book made $103,261,464 in its first week of showing. The advantages of Imax and 3D versions allows the designers to make much more creative scenes that will blow the minds of kids and will allow adults to enjoy the film just for the effects that are new and never seen before. The benefits to the IMAX 3D approach is that dual projectors create more screen brightness, and linear polarizers allow more light to reach the eyes - so the picture should be brighter than in traditional 3D projection. Worldwide Box Office sales were $963,901,123 and it made an est. $19,050,838 in Domestic DVD Sales. This made it one of the largest grossing films worldwide. And made it the 35th largest grossing film of all time
In the opening day the jungle book made $103,261,464 in its first week of showing. The advantages of Imax and 3D versions allows the designers to make much more creative scenes that will blow the minds of kids and will allow adults to enjoy the film just for the effects that are new and never seen before. The benefits to the IMAX 3D approach is that dual projectors create more screen brightness, and linear polarizers allow more light to reach the eyes - so the picture should be brighter than in traditional 3D projection. Worldwide Box Office sales were $963,901,123 and it made an est. $19,050,838 in Domestic DVD Sales. This made it one of the largest grossing films worldwide. And made it the 35th largest grossing film of all time
Conclusion
To conclude it is important to stress the importance of
distribution to a conglomerate like Disney. Without effective distribution patterns
films could easily underachieve profit wise for example but it must be
remembered that distribution cannot be seen in isolation because it can quite
easily be linked to the principle of synergy, as one business theorist states ‘industries
rely on repetition through use of stars, genres, franchises, repeatable
narratives and so on to sell formats to audiences, then industries try to
impose scarcity to keep demand high.’ This is very true of Disney who with the
original Jungle Book 1967 found himself with limited avenues of distribution –
namely TV and film, thus to keep The
Jungle Book characters fresh in the minds of audiences the company created
other programmes and ancillary products from 1967 to the early 2000’s to keep alive the idea of
the characters so that in the future there could be a potential remake or
reboot of the original film, these other programmes included Talespin, a
cartoon starring many of the characters from the original film and Jungle Cubs
– another cartoon which explored Baloo, Shere Khan and other characters’ lives
as children, the aim of these products were to not only to keep audiences
entertained but to keep the Jungle Book franchise fresh and active although
more importantly , a means by which one media product can promote another media
product by the same company, a term called synergy `and one which will only
improve with the creation of Disney’s new streaming service in 2019.
Production
Essay on Jungle Book production
Walt
Disney is a part of the big six and are an entertainment conglomerate; meaning
they own many different media companies. They
are the biggest media conglomerate in the United states s they own large stakes
in Hulu (30%) and own the film and entertainment rights to Marvel, Pixar and
the recently bought Lucas film from George Lucas to get all the rights towards
Star wars and all the intellectual properties of Lucas film. Their biggest
competition is 20th century fox however with the latest deal they now own 20th century fox and have much
more room to produce more films with less competition. Disney is renowned in filmmaking as being perfectionists.
Details, especially in the animation such as Pixar, are considered carefully
before being undertaken. This is also shown in their business tactics,
carefully reducing the competition. A state of limited competition, in which a market is
shared by a small number of producers or sellers, five other major film studios
include Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Universal
Pictures.
Disney’s
reputation in film making is quite impressive because of how they keep pulling
off many re-makes of classics and also bringing out new ones that have never
been seen before. They produce movies that have a sense of never being explored
before and therefore are quite good trendsetters as they create a new path for
many other companies, even though they believe theirs will always come out on
top. Disney follow a formulaic
approach for many of their most popular productions, which involves releasing a
set number of films each year, such as releasing a few original productions
(through Pixar), two live-action remakes (such as the Jungle Book) and also a
franchise film (often times Star Wars). Following this approach allows Disney
to almost skip half of the process, as they often times already have a main
storyline which they can just ‘recycle’ and adapt to a modern audience. Disney
also have access to a wide range of famous, high profile cast members to create
some ‘star appeal’ towards the movie, all of which can drive a higher audience
percentage to the Disney film.
Favreau
used intertextuality in his live-action Jungle Book remake which proposes
several questions. There is a scene in the Jungle Book which is not found in
the original, where Mowgli jumps into a stampede of Wildebeest in order to
escape Shere Khan the tiger. This scene is similar to that found in the Lion
King, 1994. In 2019, the live-action remake of The Lion King is being released.
Is this subliminal advertising or a Disney ‘easter-egg’ hinting at their newest
release? Using
simulacra and MPC, (Motion Picture Company). They put the Mowgli actor in front
of a blue screen with 3D parts resembling the landscape, they also gave Mowgli
props to resemble the other characters. The uncanny effect is when characters in a film are very
similar to real life. The objects resemblance to real life is very prevalent.
Disney wanted to avoid this because it can make characters look very robotic
and the overall effect is not worthwhile.I
feel as if the animals are very realistic in the film, which is a way to
encourage an older audience to engage in the action. Even though they are
realistic, they still have the ability to talk, which is what makes them
childlike. MPC
have helped Jungle Book by giving them the honour to be nominated for the “Best
Visual Effects”. This would have given Jungle Book the positive recognition it
deserved, which would have helped to increase its sales. Simulacra was the process of combining real world actors and
sets with computer graphics actors and sets. Examples of this was when they had
Mowgli and Baloo moving on the same scene but Baloo is computer generated while
Mowgli is a real person which shows how they have merged two different types of
visuals together.
The story boarding process of the film
was to plan animations and create the music before the film was even thought
about being made. They used the
older darker version of the jungle book which was scrapped and not used due to
it not being very child friendly as a reference point for making a fun more
child friendly film. Rot scoping is the transfer (an image from live action
film) into another film sequence using an otoscope. Xerography, also
known as electrophotography, is a printing and photocopying technique that
works on the basis of electrostatic charges. The xerography process is the dominant
method of reproducing images and printing computer data and is used in
photocopiers, laser printer s and fax machines.
To conclude, the production
process of both Jungle book films places technology and the experience of the
audience at the heart of development. This commitment has not changed in the 80
years since the release of Snow White and by examining the production processes
of both Jungle Book movies you can tell that the focus on technological change
is just as important now as it ever was.
Friday, 12 January 2018
Film audience
Audience
Gone from a VALUE CHAIN to a SOCIAL NETWORK
Audience engagement
This describes how an audience interacts with a media text. Different people meet in different ways to the same text.
Audience Foreknowledge
This is the definite information which an audience brings to a media product.
Audience Identification
This is the was in which audiences feel themselves connected to a particular text
- Mainstream and Niche
- In this case it is the relationship between the audience and institution
- Audience = the ways in which people engage with media
- Institutions are no longer interested in keeping the audience together but in "triggering engagement" in people.
Gone from a VALUE CHAIN to a SOCIAL NETWORK
Audience engagement
This describes how an audience interacts with a media text. Different people meet in different ways to the same text.
Audience Foreknowledge
This is the definite information which an audience brings to a media product.
Audience Identification
This is the was in which audiences feel themselves connected to a particular text
Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Film Industries
4 Stages of Film
- When two or more companies engage in a multi industry company
Ownership types
Horizontal Integration
- When the production company has ownership of the means of production, distribution and exhibition of the film by the source company as they receive all of the profit.
Horizontal Integration
- When the production company expands into other areas of one industry. It can acquire or merges with other companies that do the same thing to help eliminate competition. The profits will be shared amongst each company.
- Production/pre production
- Distribution
- Marketing
- Exhibition/exchange
- When two or more companies engage in a multi industry company
Ownership types
Horizontal Integration
- When the production company has ownership of the means of production, distribution and exhibition of the film by the source company as they receive all of the profit.
Horizontal Integration
- When the production company expands into other areas of one industry. It can acquire or merges with other companies that do the same thing to help eliminate competition. The profits will be shared amongst each company.
- Concept
- Message
- Production
- Audience
- Cost - budget
Friday, 5 January 2018
Tuesday, 2 January 2018
Daily Mail Evaluation
1) What was the task you were given and who was your target audience?
The task we were given was to recreate a Daily Mail cover. Our target audience was towards a more right wing C2, D and E demographic.
2) What research did you undertake and what did you find were some of the typical conventions of a Daily Mail front cover - layout, types of stories, fonts
The Daily Mail write shorter stories using unambiguous language and they have more pictures than other newspapers. They report on political and international news however tend to focus on celebrity gossip and scandal.
3) Which Daily Mail cover did you use as your main source? Insert. What are your observations from this source? I used this cover. On this cover there is a larger colourful masthead. They have a story on the royal family. There title is bold and a funny rhetorical question. They changed the colour of "FREE" to yellow to stand out and draw people in.
4) Which areas did you find most challenging?
I found that the fonts and the sizing of the letters was very difficult to get accurately, it was very fiddly. I also found it challenging coming up with the article title and content.
5) What was you initial feedback? What did others say about your production? How successful was do you think it is?I think my work was successful as I got most of the layout accurate as I out a faded picture of the Daily Mail in the background and worked on top of that. I also think my skyline was made creatively and my titles were almost an accurate font.
6) Identify with hindsight what you do to improve/do differently.
I would have written the article better and come up with a more witty headline.
7) In the exam you will be analysing newspaper front covers. In producing this cover, are there any areas that you hadn't noticed before? What have you learnt from completing this task?
I have learnt that there is a lot of bias in the Daily Mail and where to look out for its persuasive language.
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