Minecraft - Essay

Create a 1000 word essay discussing the evolution of Mincraft.  As part of the essay you will address

·      How the ownership of Minecraft has affected the games evolution

·      How Minecraft is marketed to a variety of audiences

·      How users interact with the game including how they create their own content

The ownership of Minecraft has affected the game's evolution, mainly due to the fact that it is now programmed and coded differently. Markus (Notch) Perssons developed the game in 2009 (a grassroots game) as part of the small company Mojang, which only had about 12 other people working on the game, and then sold it for £2.5 billion to Microsoft in 2013 once it had made massive profits and become a popular game. In 2010 Minecraft was developed as a multiplayer game using JAVA code, which meant that Gamers were able to contribute to the development of the program eliminating bugs and facilitating multiplayer capability, which was likely a key reason for its success. The interaction means that the creators can take on board improvements and therefore are consistently making the players happy. With Microsoft, Minecraft is now developed using more complex coding with C++ which has made it possible to have better graphics, something that makes the game much more visually appealing than previously, and also helps the game to run better as it is less prone to glitches or bugs. It has also enabled multi platform access and therefore invites all players from all consoles to play, and not feeling left out. Ownership has also affected elements of convergence as Microsoft also own Xbox, and therefore they are able to promote their console as part of Minecraft if they choose to. It also means that profits from Minecraft can be invested in improving the Xbox and therefore they benefit economically. Also, Microsoft have launched newer more traditional programs such as Minecraft Story mode which has been successful in reaching a wider audience, particularly due to the different style which allows people who could be bored of sandbox to try a new branch of Minecraft. Similar to this, in November 2014 of that year, plans to work on a virtual reality version of Minecraft in Partnership with Oculus. Virtual Reality is a greatly successful advancement and therefore Minecraft's partnership was interesting, allowing people to get even more deeply invested into the world they are playing in. Oculus is a new and exciting advancement and therefore people are always drawn to games which have this partnership and Virtual Reality feature. 

Minecraft is marketed to a wide range of audiences due to its flexible nature, which allows for a variety of interpretations from different social groups as they play the game. 43.7% of Minecraft players were 15-21, based on a survey, which is fairly young but not as young as typically stereotyped. In society there are a lot of preconceptions about the game and that it is 'easy' and therefore it should only be played or enjoyed by a younger audience, however this is not the case in reality as the difficulty can be adjusted before playing, as well as a range of different versions of the game (realms, mods, story mode, survival or creative) which allows freedom for all types of gamers to enjoy. Minecraft therefore try to reach a wide range of audiences through their marketing and are clearly successful despite criticism it may get. Firstly, young people are reached with marketing with certain techniques such as the link to Lego. Minecrafts relation to Lego is important, as it is a form of media convergence. Lego fans may play Minecraft and vice versa, creating a bigger fan base which is typically young for Lego (though not always). Lego also created their own game similar to Minecraft, which they believed would be greatly beneficial to them despite taking profits off of a similar idea because it will direct players towards the original game, adding another element of convergence. As well as this, the Minecraft short movie was aimed at children, which is another way that they can become invested in the game and become bigger fans of it, buying more products and merchandise if they like the film. Minecraft's education edition helps to market the game towards students as well as teachers as it is a fun learning resource for a variety of subjects and programming, which can be used in lessons, but also promotes the game's other modes if the players become interested. Adults and teenagers can also be targeted by elements such as Minecraft Realms, which allows them to interact with other players and create their own servers. 

Users are able to interact with Minecraft by voting on polls about certain updates and features in the game. For example, which mob makes it in to ‘Minecon’, and requires voting and elimination. This can create a sense of competition and excitement in the community. As well as this, YouTube, Facebook and online fan communities has enabled Minecraft’s audience to have an active voice through detailed feedback and commentary on modifications and beta tests. As well as social media, there are also several forums in which fans of the game can talk about anything they want about it, and builds a further sense of interaction and loyalty among fans. It can also help people to build friendships and fulfil their 'personal relationships needs' (Bulmer and Katz) as they have a mutual interest in the game. Many YouTubers that play Minecraft are adults which can be very beneficial for Minecraft as it allows viewers to see what the game is like and understand that it is not just aimed at young people. Some of these YouTubers include 'CaptainSparklez', who created highly-produced parodies and music videos from Minecraft animation, which very often went viral and achieved over 100million views. Not only does this make the game look fun, but could even cause someone to want to become a Minecraft YouTuber for the fortune, and therefore may promote the game in order to fulfil their survival needs of earning money as well as entertainment (Hierarchy of needs, Maslow). As well as this, Youtubers such as The Yogcast or Pewdiepie (old videos) make content suitable for adults while Stampy or Sky does Minecraft may be more suited to children. This wide range of social media content benefits Minecraft because it encourages people to support the game. 

Media Industries and Audiences: Minecraft

•Digitally convergent media: Video games consoles are an excellent example of a digitally convergent device, you can not only play games but access social media, surf the internet, stream films and TV content and upload content into cloud based servers. Cross-media content helps maximise profits and also improve reach to new customers.

•Production: This refers to all phases of designing, developing and making the media product;.

•Distribution: This refers to all processes linked to delivering the media product to audiences both through tangible (disc) and digital (Cloud based) media.

•Consumption: Explores the way in which the media text is used by audiences for pleasure but also explores the rise of user generated content across several platforms.

'CaptainSparklez' is a channel with 10 million subscribers, which has created various different Minecraft parodies that have gone viral. One example is '"Revenge" - A Minecraft Parody of Usher's DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love (Music Video)' which has achieved 173 million views. 

•Minecraft is the second most successful video game of all time behind Tetris.

•It was created and designed by Markus Persson,
a game programmer, who also developed and published the game through his company Mojang. A full version of the game went on release in November 2011.

•To date, well over 121 million copies have been sold across all platforms, including over 27 million PC copies, making it the biggest selling PC game of all time. 

The success of the games market.

–The UK’s   US$4 billion;

–China,   US$24.4 billion

–America’s   US$23.6 billion

•A recent report by the UKIE1 suggests that the global games market is now worth in excess of US$100 billion.    

•In comparison to traditional media like film, radio, print and television, video games are much younger, exponentially growing since the 1970s.

•Minecraft’s Swedish creator, Markus “Notch” Persson started creating the game in May of 2009 having been inspired by similar games such as Dwarf Fortress, a single- player construction and management game; his goal was to produce a Role Playing Game variation.

•Minecraft’s initial reception wasn’t commercially viable, seen more as a niche product for players with expert knowledge of computers and programming. 

Maintaining audiences

LEGO AND MINECRAFT

Lego Worlds is available now, at £11.99, via the Steam gaming platform. Its final release, featuring classic and modern playsets and popular mini-figures, is expected in 2016. Speaking last year, David Gram, Lego's marketing director, said: "Minecraft is digital Lego. We only wish we had invented it."

Lego likely created this after seeing Minecraft's success due to the similarity between the products. A box of physical lego is more expensive than the game they have released, therefore it is like a marketing stategy to appeal to a new audience who like to play video games. 

The game is given to the education sector for free. 

GENRE

Action -- e.g. call of duty 

Arcade -- e.g. streetfighter or pacman

Adventure -- e.g. minecraft or the walking dead

Fighting -- e.g. mortal combat 

Racing -- e.g. f1 challenge

Shooter -- e.g. FPS (Half Life) or TPS (GTA)

RPG -- e.g. Elder Scrolls

MMORPG -- e.g. world of warcraft

Minecraft storymode has also been developed. 

In terms of production: 2010 Minecraft was developed as a multiplayer game using JAVA code.. 

Gamers were able to contribute to the development of the program eliminating bugs and facilitating multiplayer capability

In September of 2013, Microsoft bought all rights to Minecraft from Mojang for $2.5 billion dollars.

Due to the original nature of the game, most players simply logged in to play Minecraft and didn’t need a physical copy of the game. 

When the Xbox and PlayStation versions were created there was often a chance to offer digital versions of the same game across the Windows 10 operating system 

Users were often encouraged to download the game through the cloud servers rather than a physical copy of the game which would incur more of a cost for the institution. 

Physical copies of the game were released 6 months after the cloud versions t encourage online purchase and reduce the risk of piracy

•Why Microsoft purchased – Minecraft for 2.5£Bn?

–Given the nature of the parent company and the loyal fan base of PC gamers, it was in the company’s interest to invest US$2.5 billion to purchase Mojang for long term revenue.
–Microsoft have since developed the product using more complex coding C++
–This has enabled multi platform access (mentioned previously)
–They have launched newer more traditional programs such as Miecraft Story board
–Minecraft in November 2014 of that year, plans to work on a virtual reality version of Minecraft in Partnership with Oculus
--Also vertical integration as Microsoft own Xbox and this can help to promote them. 

•Minecrafts commercial success

–Budgets for games vary and Minecraft is a good example of a game that was made and developed using readily available open source software within the gaming community; creating the original Minecraft using Java gave it the advantage of being cross-platform: it will run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
–other mainstream games that require entire teams of programmers, artists and engineers to make video games that have budgets equal or exceeding that of mainstream films.  AN example of this includes CALL OF DUTY

•Minecraft’s not for profit funding of projects

–Minecraft has also been linked to non-profit projects such as the UNs Block by Block project, which encourages communities around the world to redesign their neighbourhoods using Minecraft.

–An educational version has also been developed, MinecraftEdu (2012), which has several applications to help teach subject and develop a culture of computer programming amongst digital natives. 

Audiences

•Minecraft has universal appeal. It is useful to explore how such a game can appeal to different ages, genders and audiences from different social and cultural backgrounds.

•The variety of different modes is certainly a contributing factor to the game’s success, but also the way in which audiences can control and shape their own worlds and create new identities through mods and altering textures, maps and craft kits.

The content is suited to the wide age demographic due to the different modes and forms of playing which accommodate a large amount of people unlike other games. There is also choice of difficulty mode which can help younger people to begin playing, as well as older people who like the challenge. Story mode can also be a good way to invite younger children into the game if they do not understand the sandbox style, though this is also another reason it is so fitting for a wide age group - the freedom of what to build and how to play. 

The introduction of Minecraft Realms (2013) has tried to give the producers more control over the distribution and circulation of the game since some pro-am consumers were creating their own virtual spaces and hacks across illegitimate servers, such as https://www.wizardhax.com/ play/ as one example.

Realms is intended for use by small  groups of friends or as a family server

The interrelationship between media technologies and patterns of consumption and response

•YouTube, Facebook and online fan communities has enabled Minecraft’s audience to have an active voice in its ongoing production through detailed feedback and commentary on modifications and beta tests. There are several niche forums that should also be investigated across the internet.

Radio 1 - Essay

Write an essay

Part (a)Radio 1 target audience is on the decline, discuss the reasons why audience numbers are dropping and the steps taken by the organisation to maintain (and or grow) its audience 600 words.  Discuss the role of technology in maintaining its audience

Audience members of Radio 1 have been dropping in recent years as a result of the youth losing interest in radio, and instead being drawn to newer social media platforms such as YouTube or Spotify. This is unfortunate due to the key demographic for the Breakfast Show being ages 15-29, a generation that no longer listen to much radio. Although it seems that the Breakfast Show has lost its massive following (now being at below 5 million listeners a week), it is actually succeeding more than other broadcasters such as Radio 2, likely due to having a much higher Facebook and Twitter following: On YouTube, Radio 1 has 3.5m subscribers compared to Radio 2’s (roughly) 40,000. Radio 1 has 2.5m Facebook likes compared to Radio 2’s (roughly) 600,000. Radio 2 may have higher listening figures for its live shows, but the reach of Radio 1 – particularly with viral content – is much higher on social media than it is for Radio 2, which is likely due to the young audience ironically. The Breakfast Show has taken some steps in order to maintain its audience, such as creating video-based challenges that are able to be posted onto YouTube after it is has been broadcast. This is a successful use of multi-media convergence as many people who do not even like radio may still find the YouTube video entertaining enough to convince them to tune in. On the other hand, radio listeners may subscribe to their YouTube channel in order to see exclusive clips; this therefore grows the audience for both the radio and their YouTube channel. This can also be linked to the 'listen, watch, share' strategy, in which the audience will hear the challenge on the radio and then revisit it on YouTube to fulfil entertainment needs, and then pass it on to others who may find it funny. In the past the Breakfast Show have played games such as 'Innuendo Bingo' and 'Playground Insults' which are similar to challenges that young people like to watch on sites such as YouTube or James Cordon's show, therefore the competitive nature of these funny videos mean that it is important to share them on many social media sites and get them shared. 

While Nick Grimshaw was the radio host, he had various social media accounts such as twitter (@grimmie) and snapchat on which he posted exclusive, funny clips. Posting entertaining, personal videos and tweets are important to developing an audience because it creates a sense of friendship, which help make the fan base feel included in the community. New host Greg James also has social media and twitter, which has likely had a slight impact on Radio 1 due to his previous following; fans of Greg James would likely have started tuning in to the show to hear more from him, another successful mode of convergence created by technology advancements. Technology has also allowed fans to be much more interactive with the show, which is exactly what Greg James is aiming for. He claimed that he wants listeners to 'engage, rather than eavesdrop' which is now possible in recent years, with new challenges such as 'Yesterday's Quiz' and fans calling in to request certain songs being introduced into the show. 'Yesterday's Quiz' is particularly successful as it encourages people to listen intently to the show, either during broadcast or on catch up so that they could have a chance at winning a prize. The option for fans to call in is very important to radio as it helps the platform to feel friendly and conversational, which is more enjoyable for the demographic. It is also common for the radio producers to look through social media, mainly twitter, while broadcasting so that they can read and respond to any tweets that they see. On the 5th December, James had a famous athlete call in to take part in the quiz too which is fairly important as celebrity endorsements are successful in promotions. 

Part (b) From your viewing 400 words (listening) of a radio 1 breakfast show program

Discuss the impact of Radio 1’s funding (from tax payers money) on its production content. (take into account the stations remit…)   

Identify examples from your analysis you must also refer to commercial radio stations Capital One or Radio X to highlight the differences

Radio 1's funding has an impact on the production due to the much higher budget that can be spent on the show. Instead of relying on advertisers, the show is funded by the public's payment of a TV licence, £150 per year per household. Due to this, Radio 1 are able to continue broadcasting all through the night, even when profits will be low due to most people being asleep. It also means that the show are able to introduce new artists such as Unknown T or Billie Eilish as well as the famous stars. It is part of the BBC remit to 'inform, educate and entertain' as well as promoting emerging artists and British songs. Over half of BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show's playlist usually consists of varied popular and emerging British music, such as Little Mix, George Ezra, Sam Fender and the 1975. It also means that the Radio can promote various amounts of competitions, being able to afford shipping and delivery costs of rewards for listeners who take part and win (despite Greg James' ironic joke that they couldn't on the 5th December). 

This is different to other radio stations such Radio 1's commercial rival, Capital. The Guardian reported that Both stations played a similar number of tracks – 1,068 (Radio 1), and 1,081 (Capital). However, Capital played the same songs fairly often, so that there were only 83 unique songs, compared with 443 at Radio 1. They had 49 unique songs in common, which is over half of Capital's playlist. This shows that Radio 1 are able to play more songs across the day with their high budget. It can also be compared to Radio X, which doesn't have a large amount of songs on its playlist. The daytime playlist features 14 songs, and evening playlist features 28, altogether 42. Though they likely do play more songs, it is evident that like capital they will have many repeats throughout the shows in order to appeal to their more narrow demographic, and lower budget.  

The budget of Radio 1 also means they can afford celebrity endorsements if they want to, which is very expensive considering the BBC have to pay for the visit, the flight and possibly a hotel too. Greg James does it less often, however Nick Grimshaw invited Demi Lovato along with other celebs onto the show as part of cross media convergence as she promoted the radio show and he spoke to her about her album and documentary. 

Media Industries and Audiences: Radio 1 Breakfast Show

Notes from AS:

Media radio 1 from elleguyan


New content:

PBS - Refers to broadcasting intended for public benefit rather than to serve purely commercial interest
Remit - inform, educate, entertain

5th December with Greg James (Yesterday's Quiz, Wednesday fun and Ten Minute Takeover)

Songs and British Artists (clear variety of genres) 

1. Not3s (rapper)
2. Loyle Carner (hip hop)
3. MK (american), Jonas Blue and Becky Hill (house)
4. Sam Fender (alternative rock)
5. Mumford and sons (folk rock, alternative rock)
6. You me at six (rock band)
7. Ellie Goulding (electro pop, synth pop, etc)
8. The streets (alternative hip hop)
9. Disciples (house)
10. Friendly fires (indie rock)
11. Jess Glynne (pop, R&B, dance, soul)
12. Unknown T (grime)
13. Duke Dumont (edm)
14. Clean Bandit - (electronic)
15. Little mix - (pop)
16. Biffy clyro (alternative rock)
17. James Arthur (pop)
18. Jax Jones (house)
19. Lewis Capaldi (pop)
20. George Ezra (blues)
21. M-22 (dance)
22. 1975 (indie pop)

22 out of 43 are British (53%)

–List 5 British Contemporary songs.

Jonas Blue, Little Mix, Jess Glynne, George Ezra, James Arthur 

-Emerging artists

Sam Fender, Unknown T

Emerging artists are important to radio 1 as they allow new songs to be discovered and help out. This can be good for young people who often support new artists and enjoy listening to new music as long as it is good. This is different to other radio's who may have less budget and therefore they want to gain good profit by playing songs that definitely attract listeners. Radio X for example plays music specific to their audience which are largely white adult males, therefore they may not listen to emerging artists with little reputation. 

Overall Notes -- 

(summary) Weather, Cardi B's sad breakup and clip of her speaking

(music gets louder in between speaking)

-Talks about future features on the radio show and the time they're happening 

-2:45 song starts (Halsey, then 5sos) 

-Talks to a guest ?

-Harry Redknapp (bug buster challenge) and how he doesn't know about Toy Story - soft news

-Talking about guests such as Laurie who is being sent something but abroad, makes joke about postage cost, and how somebody hasn't heard of Hey Jude

-Keeps referencing Harry Redknapp joke 

-At 29-30 minutes some hard news starts, homelessness, inspection of race course as horses died. then sport and man city, west ham, bournemouth, Brighton etc and premier league. weather 

-Reading what 'Chloe' said, social media or text in? Interactive 

-Said 'soz' 

-competition

-'yesterday's quiz' talking to guest about his training for triathlon, then quizzes him 

-makes mistake and laughs - 'what colour is Rudolph the red nose reindeers nose' 

-At 59-30 minute, talks about strikes, football. weather update 

Every half an hour there is a news cycle in which they briefly mention any hard news as well as weather updates and football. Football keeps it lighthearted and prevents people from switching off, however it is still short for those who are only interested in the music. It is beneficial to run on a half hour cycle as people who listen to other stations may still tune in every half hour for the brief news. 

•The Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Greg James is broadcast weekdays from 06.30-10.00 am.

•The Breakfast Show has been running since 1967, but Greg James took over as the 16th presenter in 2018.

•BBC Radio 1 is broadcast on FM, DAB, Freeview, Freesat, Virgin, Sky, or online via BBC Radio Player (including via the phone or tablet app) where it can be heard live or streamed for 30 days.

•It is produced by the BBC from its own studios at Broadcasting House in London.

•There’s a useful BBC Academy podcast (with transcript) about how the programme is produced http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/articles/art20170619095219011

•The music is largely playlisted – what is going to be played on daytime Radio 1 is decided by a committee; they choose around 40 records each week for repeated daytime play

•(A-list records get 25 plays a week, B-list 15, and C-list eight to 10).

–How does the content suit the target demographic of 15 – 25 year olds?

There is a lot of humour and young language such as 'soz', informal language. The 'yesterday's quiz' is fairly funny and engages the audience as it is similar to challenges that they may look at on their other chosen platforms such as YouTube

–What does the above content hope to achieve?

Engages the audience and hopes to turn them into regular viewers. It is very entertaining. Challenges such as this are likely to be made into YouTube clips which reaches a wider audience. 

–What news features were aired, why are they relevant to a youth audience. 

-football and the weather can be relevant as young people might be interested in football, or want to go out themselves and need to know the weather. If not, they may be interested in celebrity gossip such as Cardi B. There may be some youths who want to hear about the hard news and express their opinions on twitter as part of the new culture to protest and share ideas on social media.

As the BBC is the world's largest producer, it can create original high quality media content and high production costs. They are able to fly out celebrity guests and have a consistent radio station running even through the night when profits are lower. It also means they can afford to potentially lose profits by playing a range of music genres that some may not like as well as new artists who havent been heard of. 

Audience segmentation -- 

Gender is targeted by radio 1 as they have a range of different elements. Stereotypically, males will enjoy news about football and females will enjoy celebrity gossip. There are certain songs that apply specifically to a gender, for example Jess Glynne's sings about women and confidence in 'Thursdays' which males may find catchy but otherwise probably wouldn't relate to the song. 

In terms of ethnicity, culture can have an affect in terms of rap, soul, blues being part of black culture and others having different preferences. 

Host

There is debate as to whether radio 1 made the right choice in Greg James as he is funny, but is a safe option. 32 year old male, and therefore older than the target audience. He is charismatic and colloquial which may intrigue younger people more, however I feel that most young people are more interested in podcasts by people they follow rather than a radio show by a random funny presenter that they likely don't know. 

A female may have been a good choice but it may have been perceived as a 'token' and an attempt to be politically correct, and as a result annoyed certain people more. 

Maintaining audiences

On YouTube, Radio 1 has 3.5m subscribers compared to Radio 2’s paltry 42,069. Radio 1 has 2.55m Facebook likes compared to Radio 2’s 633,053. Radio 2 may have higher listening figures for its live shows, but the reach of Radio 1 – particularly with viral content – is much higher on social media than it is for Radio 2,
As Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper explained this morning: “Radio 1’s Listen, Watch, Share strategy means that RAJAR is only part of the story. Alongside the 10.5m listeners, our YouTube videos have received over 1.4 billion views and we have 8.7m followers across social media.” The reason Radio 1 has so many social media followers is because it’s producing content that works on YouTube and on social media as well as on radio. These things are funny, they’re usually video-based, and they just happen to act as breadcrumbs that entice people on social media to tune in. When it gets famous guests, Radio 1 plays games like Innuendo Bingo or Playground Insults that are rivalling Carpool Karaoke, the hugely popular spot from James Corden’s massive US TV show, in terms of actual funniness and in what execs like to call ‘shareability’.

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.