Olivia Whittome AS Media : ADVERTISING AND MEDIA (JUNGLE BOOK)

Advertising and Media (Jungle book)

Media Language means the way in which a text is constructed to create meaning for a reader or viewer of the text. All media texts are constructed; someone has made decisions about how they should be constructed so that the form matches the content and with a particular audience in mind.

Media text is any media product we wish to examine. Every description or representation of the world, fictional or otherwise, is an attempt to describe or define reality, and is in some way a construct of reality, a text.

Media Language
Media Industry - 4 Aspects of theoretical framework
Media Audience
Media Representation

Representation - Refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures.

Marketing -

Do Something Remarkable – The Publicity Stunt

Pre-Roll Video Advertising

Be Smart With Press Events

Let your viewers experience the story

Video Marketing

Create a visually compelling & functional sub-site

Make your Facebook Page Interactive

Use social competitions & quizzes

Using Celebrity & Brand Partnerships

Using Memes & Other Forms of UGC

Below the line-

Below the line (BTL) advertising is more one to one, and involves the distribution of pamphlets, handbills, stickers, promotions, brochures placed at point of sale, on the roads through banners and placards.

It could also involve product demos and samplings at busy places like malls and market places or residential complexes.

For certain markets, like rural markets where the reach of mass media like print or television is limited, BTL marketing with direct consumer outreach programmes do make the most sense.

Above the line-

Above the lineATL) advertising is where mass media is used to promote brands and reach out to the target consumers.

These include conventional media as we know it, television and radio advertising, print as well as internet.

This is communication that is targeted to a wider spread of audience, and is not specific to individual consumers. ATL advertising tries to reach out to the mass as consumer audience.

All the animals and landscapes etc were created on computers, mostly by the British digital effects house MPC

Give several examples of how the Jungle Book was marketed in 2016

Disney made several smart marketing choices during the lead-in to the release of The Jungle Book that helped build hype and buzz for the movie. They combined typical marketing approaches, special opportunities available only to Disney, and a few unique techniques and messaging particular to this film

Mention any special promos, stunts, law of the jungle, theme parks, sand sculptures etc

Toss Red Meat to the Base:

In August, Mr. Favreau bounded onto a 7,800-seat arena at a Disney fan convention in Anaheim, Calif and showed sneak-peek footage from his film. He hobnobbed with three “Jungle Book” stars on stage, including Neel Sethi, who plays the man-cub Mowgli. Thousands of movie posters were handed out. This was the first marketing stunt for “The Jungle Book,” which cost roughly $175 million to make. By going to happy, peppy Disneyphiles first, Disney ensured that the movie’s initial blast on social media would be a positive one.

Theme Park Armies, Activate

> Various corners of the Disney empire pitched in to promote “The Jungle Book.” A New Year’s Day stunt on the Disney Channel, for instance, was used to portray the film as one of the year’s first blockbuster offerings for families and children.

> But the synergistic heavy lifting was done by Disney theme parks. During the jam-packed spring break weeks, park theaters in Florida and California offered sneak-peek footage of the movie, with Mr. Favreau providing introductions.

examples of how the Jungle Book was marketed in 1967

Disney thought the first version of the script was too dark for family audiences, that the audience wouldn’t be able to identify with the boy, Mowgli, and that the villain, the tiger Shere Khan, would be a cliché; so Disney himself took control and changed the production team.

Theatrical run: The Jungle Book was released in October 1967, just 10 months after Walt's death. Some copies were in a double feature with Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar. Produced on a budget of $4 million, the film was a massive success, finishing 1967 as the fourth highest-grossing movie of the year. The Jungle Book was re-released theatrically in North America three times, 1978, 1984, and 1990, and also in Europe throughout the 1980s. The total gross is $141 million in the United States and $205 million worldwide. The North American total, after adjustments for inflation, is estimated to be the 29th highest-grossing film of all time in the United States. An estimated $108 million alone came from Germany making it the third highest-grossing film of all time there only behind Avatar ($137 million) and Titanic ($125 million). However, it is Germany's highest-grossing film of all time in terms of admissions with 27.3 million tickets sold, nearly 10 million more than Titanic's 18.8 million tickets sold.

Walt Disney Home Entertainment released it on VHS in 1991 (and the UK in 1993) and on DVD in 2007. It was re-released several times on DVD and on BluRay – with extras or different packaging in order to pick up new buyers (e.g. the Limited Edition DVD released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment in 1999 or the Diamond line combination of Blu Ray and DVD in 2014). Occasionally Disney films are ‘vaulted’ meaning they are not available for purchase, which pushes up the demand – the Diamond edition of JB disappeared to the vault in January 2017, for example. However, the classic edition of the DVD and merchandise relating to JB are still available in Disney Stores and on the Disney website, which is marking the 50th anniversary. The original vinyl soundtrack for JB was also the first record to achieve gold status in the USA from an animated feature film. JB has also been released by Disney as digital downloads via iTunes, Disney Movies Anywhere, Disney Life, Amazon Video, Movies Anywhere, Google Play etc.

Disney produced a live-action version in 1994 and an animated sequel, The Jungle Book 2, in 2003, which Disney had intended to release direct to video (under Michael Eisner a number of straight to video sequels were produced, which in turn promoted the original films).

Comparisons -

The 2016 poster we can see is a lot more complexed and detailed than the 1976 poster. By using more modern technology such as CGI it makes the film see more realistic as the characters aren't animated.

Created by Walt Disney 1976 film

-Based on Rudyard Kipling’s book THE JUNGLE BOOK (1894)

-Kipling’s narrative contained “darker themes” and content which were judged to be unsuitable for a -Disney film.

-Walt wanted a film that was “light, fun, and entertaining with happy song - good stuff, fun stuff.”

-The story was modified by Larry Clemmons, who was given, a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s novel but told him that ‘The first thing I want you to do is not to read it’. To turn the book into a successful film many of the original characters and situations were cut out, creating a clear storyline.

-At a superficial level the cartoon should not be offensive to anyone.

Character representation -

Baloo

- Band leader & Comedian-singer Phil Harris was cast for the role Baloo – ‘Harris put the lines of dialogue into his own vernacular, (way of speaking) and brought the role to life’, said Ollie Johnston, one of Disney’s main animators.

- The director, Wolfgang Reitherman, said that, ‘In The Jungle Book we tried to incorporate the personalities of the actors that do the voices into the cartoon characters, and we came up with something totally different.

Shere Khan

-Shere Khan was designed to resemble his voice actor, George Sanders, renowned in Hollywood for playing elegant villains, but his movements were based on live action big cats: the animator Milt Kahl based the movements on animals

-Disney and many American filmakers have a tract record of using the English accent to represent villainy this is because The queens english is represented as upper class and seems more cunning, sophisticated and clever compared to the american accent.

King Louie

- played by Italian American Louie band leader Prima

- Disney’s own politics were rather conservative, right-wing and, undoubtedly this affected the representations constructed within the film. (An interesting article on how Disney’s personal,political views shaped the characterisation and narrative is found in

- The character King Louie, who seems to some viewers to offer a racialized portrait of jazz culture that conflates “swingers” (presumably African American jazz musicians) with monkeys.

- Louie, the Monkey-People’s, orangutan ruler. wants to learn how to make fire so that he can be like a man. This could easily be interpreted through a racial lens; the monkeys could be depictions of Africans wanting to learn how to be “civilized” equals of the white man.

- In the 1967 film King Louie was made to be the same size as the other characters to make him less threatening, whereas in the 2016 movie they are looking at the factual knowledge of the size of the monkey in real life to make the film seem more lifelike.

- Legato based King louie in the 2016 movie on Marlon Brandon in apocalypse now "I think it grew and evolved because a lot of the movie took more inspiration from the original story than the Disney version of it," Legato says. "Yet, this portion of it was in the Disney version, which was a suspension of the story. He really couldn't have been the same size as the rest of [the apes] in terms of his importance and magic in the story. So they just took a leap there. So some things are directly taken from the book and some things are directly taken from the movie and the movie became the melding of all those things. And I think it just becomes an artistic choice."

"As soon as you wanted to have King Louie you want to make him more king-like or [realistic] and it starts to grow from there and then they start to justify it," he adds.

- The voice of King Louie in the 2016 has an American gangsta type accent this then shows how he does not relate to any racial features

Female representation (trailer)

There appears to be no representation of female characters in the 1967 version of the Jungle Book.

The Director Jon Favreau in the 2016 version chose to cast Scarlett Johannson as Kaa providing a more Seductive/beguiling voice compared to the comedic representation of the 1967 film

Marketing-