Jungle Book - Essay

•Create an essay which discusses the impact of technology on the production, distribution and circulation of the Jungle Book versions (1967 and 2016) version.

•Discuss the importance of technological developments in maintaining audiences

•1000 word essay

The development of technology has impacted the film industry and its many organisations, causing a huge increase in the use of spectacle which ensures that large companies remain dominant as they create high budget productions with expensive set design and post production effects in order to encourage more family viewing for blockbusters. 6 conglomerate companies own the majority of media; the largest of these being Disney. Walt Disney often uses techniques such as vertical integration and synergy to promote their films, partnering with many other companies in order to increase cinema revenue. This has decreased over the years as a result of streaming using Amazon, Sky and Netflix. 

The cartoon adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's book 'The Jungle Book' in 1967 pioneered the use of multi-plane cameras in order to create a better, 3D effect picture. Disney wanted to achieve better ratings than the previous film 'Sword and the Stone', so production techniques and storyline needed to be carefully considered. Cel animation was used, which is a technique that has been developing quickly throughout the years. Originally, a background and the moving character would be drawn separately and placed on each other, limiting the background's detail. This developed into the background being drawn onto every frame, which was tedious and took a long time. Then there was the idea to use a static background and a moving character, which developed into using coloured outlines and eventually CAPS (computer animated production system), partnering with Pixar. These advancements are significant as it meant that the 1967 development of the Jungle Book was able to use visually detailed and appealing animation which is much more successful with audiences, and stands out as Disney were the only company that used coloured outlines for a significant period of time. The crew featured one storyman, Bill Pete (later replaced by Larry Clemmons), a head animator and supervising animators who worked closely with Walt, allowing him to produce exactly what he wanted; a child friendly, fun story. 

In 2016, animation has become even more advanced. Pre-visualisation techniques can be used in order to show voice actors what is happening as they speak, allowing better acting due to a clearer idea of what is going on. ‘Motion capture’ and a blue screen chroma capture enable a much higher standard of visual effects, which MPC are responsible for. Adam Valdez discussed many techniques of production during an interview, such as designing the animals. The crew had to map out muscles that animals have that humans don’t, and make sure the face could snarl and yawn and growl correctly. Then create mouth shapes for speaking, testing until they found a combination of animal and human muscles that felt like an animal who happened to be able to talk. This level of detail in creating live action animals wouldn't have been possible without the technology available, using different layers to add more detail. This is successful, as audiences would likely find animals that had human muscles or actions fairly disturbing. They are aware that these animals are not real, and it is unrealistic of them to be talking, but despite this it needs to be as realistic as possible to keep people intrigued. There are also moments where Mowgli actually touches the animals, which is difficult to create without the high budget of 177 million USD. The animation of riding including the shoulder blades and other complex movement were created before the shot of Mowgli riding, using motion base set up. Hugging moments were done onset with a puppet, built exactly to match digital models of characters that were typically furry and the colour of the animal, which could then be tracked and matched to the digital versions. When Mowgli hugs his mother wolf, Raksha, his arm is digital, so that the fingers and fur could be rendered together.

Another important aspect is the distribution. The 1967 film was released in 1967 by Walt Disney Productions and created at the Walt Disney Studios. Similarly, the 2016 film was produced by Walt Disney Company and MPC, and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. This is important as Disney are able to control how the film is distributed and gain more profits by using their own company, as well as using their own media channels to market the films. The film was marketed quite successfully, using dark elements in the trailer in order to appeal to adults who may have previously stereotyped the Jungle Book as a childish film. 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. It is also true that Disney may have a larger female audience; therefore commercials on ESPN portrayed the movie as coming not from the studio that made “Cinderella” but “from the studio that brought you ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’” An extended 3-D trailer for “The Jungle Book” was attached to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which had an audience that was 58 per cent male. These techniques are useful because they establish new audiences who may not have initially wanted to watch the film, but also keep the fans of Jungle Book interested. 

Use of technology has also impacted film productions in terms of exhibition as the introduction of iMax made cinematic productions much more appealing to audiences. A typical film uses 35mm film limited to 6k lines of horizontal resolution, however iMax format produces approximately 18k lines of horizontal resolution. This means that the quality at the cinema has drastically improved and therefore caused an increase in cinema revenue, despite it still being voted the least favourite method of media consumption.