Disney Films and Multimedia Platforms - Cinema

Cinema is used regularly by Disney to advertise and show their films. Trailers for new films are often showed before a Disney film, because the majority of their target audience will already be in there waiting for the film to come on. So by showing the trailer before a Disney movie it will appeal a lot more to that selection of the audience. This will advertise the movie making people want to watch it. Disney will advertise both A and B films in the cinema. They also may advertise them when other older movies are on that parents are more likely to see so they then go home and think about taking their children to go and watch it.

The cinema is quite a quick way of distributing the information as it with give the audience a teasing clip of the movie; they then will go home and research about it which involves other media institutions. A downside to this way of advertisement is that it doesn’t involve that much information and is on for a very short time so the audience may feel like they are being crammed with information causing them to forget the majority of it. Therefore Disney would have to make their trailers very memorable. People only go to the cinema once or twice so the information doesn’t last for very long.

Disney uses cinema very often to advertise their new films. However they won’t always advertise B standard films in the cinema because the budget for them is too high.

The movie Tangled used this as a way of advertisement.

I think this is a very effective way to advertise films especially if they are advertised before the right film where the majority of the target audience are there waiting for their film to come on.

Disney’s Film Production – ‘Then and Now’

Disney’s Film Production – ‘Then and Now’

Answer the questions below in as much detail as possible, on your blog.

1.      Describe Disney’s early film production. What innovations did Disney make use of, and were there any drawbacks to early methods of film production?

•      In 1953 Disney made their first film this was called ‘Alice’s Wonderland’ created by Walt Disney. It was black and white and had no sound so used subtitles to show speech. They set up a studio in LA in their uncle’s garage called ‘Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio’ when they started to become a success they moved to a proper studio in 1926 and Ub Iwerks joined them as an animator. The first original Disney character was Oswald the Rabbit. Film makers would make a film Distributors show the film in cinemas, and today, put the film onto DVD/BluRay.Distribution costs money, and many filmmaking companies can’t afford to do both production and distribution (or don’t have the facilities/contacts etc). For example, Snow White (1937) was made by Disney but distributed by RKO Radio Pictures and Enchanted (2007) was made by Disney and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (amongst others). Some films use multiple distributors to show films in different countries. Cartoons were produced in colour in 1932; the success of Steam Boat Willie allowed Walt to flan for their first feature length animation. Snow White won an academy award in 1939 for “a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field”. From the success of Snow White, Disney built a huge new studio in Burbank, California. The vast majority of Disney’s most popular films are adapted from stories that already exist (often fairy tales)

2.      Describe Disney’s modern methods of film production. What options are available for Disney when they are making a film? (e.g. animation or live action, 3D). What are the benefits of some of these methods? What are the drawbacks?

·         After Walt and Roy Disney died Ron Miller took over. He created Touchstone Pictures to allow Disney to create more adult films without it clashing with Disney’s main ideologies. The themes of these movies are much darker plots and have more adult content such as the language used and sex/nudity. Successful films include Pearl Harbour, Good Morning Vietnam and Armageddon. Touchstone Television and ABC studios (owned by Disney) also makes Scrubs, Lost and Desperate Housewives, amongst others. They also own the Disney channel, which shows more stereotypical Disney content. Disney purchased Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion. Steve Jobs was Pixar’s CEO and became one of Disney’s senior directors. It became a very successful move. 3D became popular so Disney decided to release Toy Story 3 in 3D. They also re-released the famous film ‘The Lion King’ in 3D.  

3.      How is technological advancement in film production benefitting audiences of Disney films? (i.e. are films better quality now than they used to be? Is this what audiences want?)

·         The first full length CGI movie by Disney was Toy Story which was made in 1995. The advancement in technology has made Disney even more successful than they were before. The films are a much higher quality which makes the audience watch and enjoy the films even more. The picture id more crisp and sharp. Now audiences have a lot more choice in what they want, as they can get films on Blue-Ray and DVD rather than just a crackly video. These methods are still being produced and improved so people will be attracted more and more to films.

4.      Who are Disney’s target audience? (Use your prior target audience profiling knowledge! A, B, C, succeeders, reformers, etc.)

·         Stereotypically Disney aims their movies at children. However more recently with the production of Touchstone Pictures Disney’s target audience has been massively increased and varies a lot more. Disney is mainly aimed at mainstreamers which is 40% of the population. However everyone from succeeders to reformers and class A to B enjoy a good classic Disney movie. Disney relates to a lot of people as the majority can understand and connect with the story lines.

5.      Choose THREE Disney films that show Dyer’s Utopian Solutions Theory. Explain how each film demonstrates the theory, and why this will attract audiences.

·         ‘Cinderella’- This fits the theory because it’s about a girl who has a tragic event in her childhood causing her not to have the best life growing up. However she then meets the man of her dreams ‘Prince Charming’ who fall in love and live happily ever after. This attracts audiences because it portrays a perfect world.

·         ‘Beauty and the Beast’- Once again this fits the general conventions of the theory as it is a happily ever after ending even though the beginning isn’t necessarily of the normal conventions.  

‘Snow White’- This film also portrays the theory because it’s about a girl who is mistreated by her Step Mother however finds love with ‘Prince Charming’ and lives happily ever after. Once again portraying a perfect world.

You tube clip- Glee (drunk episode)

In the series Glee the performance and level of acting is always at its best.

The expressions that they use always show exactly what emotion they are trying to get across. For example in the episode where they become very drunk therefore the actors have to act drunk.

When they are all dancing their moves are over exaggerated to get across that they are drunk. The volumes of their voice become very loud talking to each other as if they can’t hear one another. When Santana is shouting at her boyfriend, she is acting as the weepy hysterical drunk. Therefore to convey this she has her eyes closed her head is tilted up to Sam and her facial expressions are very wide as are her hand gestures. This also applies to Lauren and Quinn who are ‘the angry girl drunks’ therefore when they are mouthing off to Pukk they make sure to be up in his face and come across very intimidating. And as for Mercedes and Tina who are meant to be the ‘happy drunks’ they are sat on the sofa laughing all while they amusingly hit each other as people do sometimes when they are in hysterical laughter, and both have their eyes closed and lean forward and back to make sure they convey their happiness towards the audience properly.

Acting drunk can be  hard task however I believe that the Glee cast have mastered it exceptionally and each of them bring an individual quality and amusement to the audience.

Analysing the representation of disability in a touch of frost

In this extract Billy is disabled and this is represented in certain ways throughout the viewing. To begin with his is shown as being inferior to the other characters such as Frost. At the beginning of the viewing he is being chased by the police, when they manage to catch him a high angle shot is used which makes us as an audience look down on Billy. The start of the extract also shows Billy being detached from society as he is walking alone; making the audience suspect that he has done something wrong. His movements are very awkward and he stumbles a lot when he runs. When the camera pans to his face his eyes are half closed and mouth hanging open, which could represent that he has a mental disability.

When Frost goes to Billy’s house he leaves his coat on showing that he doesn’t really want to be there. The lighting is always darker on Billy rather than frost connoting that Frost is a lot smarter than Billy. Billy rarely makes eye contact with Frost this portrays how Billy may feel uncomfortable and intimidated. The way that Frost talks to Billy is the same way that you may talk to a child as it is slow and patronising. Frost is assuming that Billy is incapable to understand just because he as a disability.

The camera angle that is used between Frost and Billy in the interrogation scene always represents them as being equal as they are never high or low angles. The conversation uses a shot reverse shot editing style including long shots and straight cuts. This allows the pace of the scene to be slow however creates intensity for the audience.  The close up shots let you see the characters expressions extremely well giving you a good insight into their emotions. This shows that Frost gets increasingly irritated with Billy who becomes a lot more defensive.

Performance wise, frost always speaks very clear and calm this represents him as being professional and in control of his emotions and actions. When he questions Billy he does however at certain moments become agitated loosing his temper causing his tone to become short and sharp. This may connote that Billy can’t answer the questions in the desired way as he has a lesser mental capacity than Frost therefore can’t answer the questions satisfactorily. At one moment Billy’s dad actually talks over Billy correcting what he says, and Frost and Billy’s dad have a conversation as if he was not there. This represents that Billy cannot talk nor think for himself. And shows that disabled people are over-ruled by others in society.