Evaluation

Over the first term in media class, we have looked at the Big Issue magazine and how it started along with the
purpose of music videos. We also looked at the history of Rudyard Kipling’s book, the Jungle Book and what
companies have re invented the book through films.

Big issue

The Big Issue is a magazine which was launched in 1991 and was started by John Bird. Their mission is to
‘dismantle poverty by creating opportunity, through self-help, social trading and business solutions.’ This
means they want to reduce the growing numbers of homeless people on the streets. They began by offering
homeless people a chance to receive a genuine profit by selling their magazines (a print copy) on the street to
the public and then giving them money when they return with the money they received from selling the
magazines. Since 1991 the big issue has sold more than 200 million copies and have been sold by 93,000
vendors. In the past 25 years vendors have earned £115 million and 37,000 new vendors join nearly every day.
Currently there are 1500 vendors and last year they earned a total of £5.5million, which is around £3,600 a
year individually.

72% of the big issues audience are ABC1. These people are at the high end of the table (they are categorised as
people who earn a high income), 43% are AB 28% of the audience is C2,D and E which is the lower end of the
table which means they have a lower income. Therefore, the big issues Target audience is a variety as the
majority of people who read the magazine are people with high income but people who have a decent income
or no income still read the magazine. This is why the magazine has a variation of topics so they can please their
variety of audience. For example people with high end jobs may be more interested in politics then people
with little income so they magazine offers topics about politics but also about television or gaming. The age of
their target audience ranges from 18 – 70 due to the topics they talk about. However, because of the
magazines vibrant colours and bold text it can attract a few teenagers.

The big issue uses intertextuality to interact and connect to their customers. Intertextuality is using references
to any kind of media text via another media text and then incorporating it into their magazine. It is a good
method to make their audience laugh as the bi8g issue can use it to mock a person or an issue. For example
one of the big issues covers in 2016 was the topic of brexit and they put Nicola Sturgeon, David Cameron, Boris
Johnson and Nigel Farage on the bodies of the group ABBA. The background was a disco theme and each of
them had a speech bubble of the lyrics but referring to their views on brexit. For example Nicola sturgeon says
‘breaking up is never easy, I know’ as she wants to leave the EU. Their audience would find the cover funny
and would want to buy the magazine.

When I used Photoshop to produce my own big issue magazine based on intertextuality at first I found it
confusing but once I got familiar with the tools and how they work me really enjoyed using Photoshop as I feel
it was one of the best apps to produce a magazine. In my magazine I chose the issue between Kim Jong Yun
and Donald trump and how they both use fake news. To show fake news I used the theme of Barbie as they
are plastic which relates to things being fake. Kim’s head was on kens body and trumps head was on Barbie.
The title was ‘life is plastic it’s fantastic’ to show a clear relate to Barbie Doll and fake news.

The Jungle Book

Rudyard Kipling was born in India, he wrote the original version of the Jungle Book. It was released
as multiple series in a magazine in 1893 and was later combined into one book in 1894. Kipling
wrote it for his daughter while his wife was pregnant and carried on writing them while she was
growing up. However, when she was 6 she passed away from ammonia.
Kipling used the animals in an anthropomorphic way to teach children morals and lessons of life.
Anthropomorphism is when characteristics of humans are portrayed through animals. For example
‘the rule of the jungle’ verses in the book refers to keeping yourself and your family safe.

During the 1960s there was lots of different changes happening, especially in America. America was
beginning to become more equal by getting rid of segregation. In the Disney Jungle book there is a
theme of jazz music throughout which is very popular music in the black community. Disney asked
Louis Armstrong to play some of the music for the movie and also to be the voice of King Louis in the
movie. Louis Armstrong is a very famous jazz musician therefore, by Disney including him and his
music it shows that Disney is supporting getting rid of segregation in the US.

Disney’s Jungle Book had a budget of $4 million but overall made $141 million in the USA and has
won numerous of awards. Overall, they have won 9 awards which include Best International Film
and Best Recording for Children.

In 2016 Disney made another version of the Jungle book which is considered a live action movie as
they have embraced technology and tried to make the animals as life like as possible. They also
included real life actors that aren’t cartons. Disney’s budget for this movie was $175 million USD and
they made $995 USD which is almost 1 billion.

Marketing this movie included August, Mr. Favreau set up a show in a 7,800-seat arena at a Disney
fan convention in Anaheim, Calif, and showed sneak-peek footage from his film. He presented the
show with three “Jungle Book” stars on stage, including Neel Sethi, who plays the man-cub Mowgli.
Thousands of movie posters were handed out. By doing this and allowing viewers to ask questions
about the movie to the actors they may feel a want to see the movie more after hearing the actors
stories of the production of the film. Furthermore, Disney recently discovered that they sell more
tickets to a female audience then a male audience. Generally speaking, they believe this is due to the
opening of Disney with the castle and the songs that play during a film. Therefore, Disney trued to
find a balance of the jungle book. Most of their adverts represented the action of the movie which
would attract boys but also they showed happy moments which would be preferred by girls. The
movie did show a rise in males buying tickets.

Disney now owns Disney owns right to jungle book so they continued to exploit the rights of the film.
In the 1990s DVDs became famous so they did bonus DVD's for people to buy of the animated
version

Music Video

Music videos are short films or video that relates to a complete piece of music such as a song.
Modern music videos are mainly used as a marketing device to promote the sale of a song. The
music video used for the song thriller by Michael Jackson in 1982 was one of the first music videos to
be like a movie; it gained millions of views and is still famous now. After this music videos became
more and more popular.

There are 3 main types of music videos which are narrative, performance and artistic. Narrative is
like thriller where the video tells a story whereas, performance needs to show the artist singing or
playing an instrument. Artistic is a video which could show someone dancing or a combination of
videos showing scenery. An example is Sia chandeliers.
The last project of term was to make a music video in groups of 2 or 3. We chose a narrative based
music video which showed a couple fighting due to social media. The song was Facebook story by
Frank Ocean and it was about a couple breaking up due to social media taking over. Our target
audience was 13-30 year olds as this age group relate to media the most. Our message was how we
shouldn’t let social media take over and weaken our trust in other people because of something
social media has said; people need to live in the moment and not through their phones.