Entry 5

The children’s Disney movie Frozen has multiple different games and apps that you can download through the app store to play on your smart phone or tablet. One popular Frozen related app is called “Free Fall.” This app ties in with the larger media project of the movie Frozen in a few different ways. To start off, this app is produced by Disney. Disney is also the creators and producers of the animated children’s film as well. This app right off the bat tied in with the larger media project because the app icon on your home screen of your phone or tablet, has a picture of one of the main characters from the movie, who is a little friendly snowman named Olaf. This game is designed to be very cold looking. Everything looks very frozen and icy, different things have snow covering them throughout the game. These different winter designs stick to the icy theme that the movie is all about. The map that you travel through as you play each level of the game, takes place in the town of Arendale. This is where the movie also takes place as well. As you go through the levels, the seasons in Arendale change, this too happens in the film. Once you begin playing the game, you have to switch colored ice crystals to create a match of three or more to make them disappear. The use of ice crystals in this game ties back into the winter theme of the movie. Also, as you play different characters from the movie are there to encourage you and help you throughout the game.             

Since the movie of Frozen is a children’s movie, the target audience for this Frozen app “Free Fall” would be for younger kid players, from around the ages of four to fourteen. When you open this app for the first time, it asks you to enter your age. The app gives a IAP disclaimer stating that there are in app purchases and advertising messages.  Since this app has a younger target audience, the game was very nicely designed that stuck with the frozen winter theme and was very easy to use and navigate. When you first started playing the game, it gave you a tutorial that showed you what to do and how to play. Also, if you went in to settings, there is a “how to play the game” tab, in which you can click on and read the instructions. Both of these features makes this game easy to follow for this younger audience.

                  Throughout this game there are different creative levels and fun features to use. Within the game there are three maps that consist of different levels, these maps include the, Winter Map, Seasons Map, and Endless Map. For the seasons map, you can play at eight different levels. Each of these levels has a different season title for it. Including the, Frozen Fever Levels, Valentine Levels, Spring Levels, Halloween Levels, Autumn Levels, Holiday Levels and New Year Levels. Within each of these different season of levels, you have to pass all of the games within the previous season to unlock the next season to move on. Some of the features that these levels offer is that, as you play, you can collect items that unlock different rewards that you can use. There are also daily rewards that you can get if you come back to play the game on consecutive days to receive rewards. Another interesting feature, is that this app can connect to your Facebook account, so you can play with your friends as well as share your score online.

                         

                  This Frozen app “Free Fall” was free to download onto your smartphone or tablet from the app store. On the other hand, this game has a lot of in app purchases that you can buy through the store tab within the app. For example, you can buy a pro-bundle, different power ups that you can use for any character, different numbers of snowballs, different number of hour glasses, ice pick breaks, and you can also refill your lives by buying them. Along with this you can unlock new levels throughout the game by paying money.

                  I thought that the Frozen app “Free Fall” is a very good game. It is easy to use and it is fun. This game is very similar to the game Candy Crush. I have been a fan of Candy Crush for awhile so I am excited to find a different version of this game that I can play. I also thought that this game was very kid friendly and ties into the larger media project very well. Overall, I would give this game five stars.

           

Entry 4

         

The popular animated musical film Frozen, is a wonderful story that follows the journey of Princess Anna, who tries to break the spell of winter and  icy powers that her sister, Queen Elsa has. Since this film, Frozen, is a children’s movie, podcasts related to this film were hard to come by. Considering a younger audience doesn’t normally listen to podcasts. One very popular movie podcast that was on iTunes, entitled “Disney Story Central Podcasts.” This podcast is a kids and family podcast that is owned by Disney. These episodes all feature the a different story of Disney and Pixar movies in each one of their episodes. Some of these movies include, The Jungle Book, Finding Nemo, Moana, Beauty and the Beast, Cars, Tory Story, etc. Out of these Disney Story Central’s 19 podcasts, their Frozen episode is their most popular podcast, along with their Tangled episode. The average rating that the audience gave was fives stars, as well as the listeners gave very positive feedback and very good reviews.

Disney Story Central Podcasts is a storytelling styled podcast, similar to listening to an audiobook. This particular series is not a Frozen only podcast, these episodes feature many other stories of different popular Disney and Pixar movies. Although there are two Frozen related episodes. The first is, “Disney: Frozen” which is episode 19 in the series. It is the most recent release, which came out on November 7, 2017. This Frozen episode is about 17 minutes long. The second episode is entitled “Disney: Frozen Fever” which is episode 8 in the series, that was released January 9, 2017. This episode is about 11 minutes in length and is a sequel to the original Frozen movie.  

For this podcast series, all of their episodes are very similar, including the ones of the Frozen and Frozen Fever episodes. The format consists of a women host, named Marie Westbrook, who opens as well as closes the show, with a male story teller in between, named Joe Hernandez.

At the very beginning of a podcast episode, the host Marie opens, and welcomes the listener to their program, she also promotes the Disney Story Podcasts, then finally introduces the Disney children’s story that they are going to be telling. Once Marie finishes, music starts to play and a male’s voice begins to tell the story. He uses a lot of different tones and animation with his voice. In the background of the story being told, music is playing. This music for the most part is a calming fantasy instrumental. This music fits along with what is going on throughout the story. For example, if the characters are having fun, the music is happy and cheery, or of the characters are scared, the music is dark and mysterious. I think this background music is the element that works best about this podcast series. This music really adds more dramatic effect to the story and makes you understand the story, as if you were actually there. At the end, once the man finishes telling the story, the background music stops and the host Marie comes back into the picture. At this time, she thanks the audience for listening, as well as promotes the Disney apps, as well as the Disney story audio books. Along with this, both at the beginning and the end the host adds a little humorous comments to lighten up the mood and keep the viewer interested, I think this works well but its not over done

                         Link to Disney Story Central Podcast - Disney Book Group

   

Entry 3

                                                                

                   Disney’s computer animated musical fantasy film, Frozen become an instant sensation right off the bat, after its release in November of 2013. Since then, it has grossed about 1.2 billion dollars, giving Frozen the title of being the fifth highest grossing film in box office history. As well as the highest grossing animated film of all time. Frozen also received two Academy Awards and one Golden Globe. Clearly Frozen was a success. Along with this extremely high revenue and popularity, the children’s movie has a very large fan base. Although Frozen’s target audience and target market is kids, it also has become a hit for adults and older kids as well. This wide range of fans not only loved the story line but also have become obsessed with the soundtracks in the movie. Fans have developed a major passion for Frozen. So many Frozen lovers have used their creativity and interpreted the movie in their own way and made fan creations. These creations have allowed these Frozen fans to then became a multiplier. They used the movie Frozen as a starting point, and then from there used their intelligence and imagination to build something of their own and original. 

                  One example where fans have utilized Frozen and created their own interpretation of it is through YouTube. On YouTube there are hundreds of videos that relate to the topic of Frozen. Ranging from covers of Frozen songs, comedy based shows, song lyric videos, tutorials, etc. One example of a Frozen multiplier on YouTube is entitled Do You Want To Build a Snowman? – Frozen Cover Little Anna In Real Life. This is a short video created by young girl, is a music video / cover of one of Frozen’s most popular songs, Do You Want to Build a Snowman?  Along with recording the song herself, she also acted out the scene of the movie, creating a YouTube video. This young girl tried to recreate the animated fiction movie to make it her own and to make it seem like it happened in real life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PGrtdcvlVE&list=PLKN6MI77EigU35PuRef-MXyIBov26wdT6

                

                  Another example where fans have shown their love for this animated musical, is through a Facebook Public Group Page. This Facebook group is entitled ***Frozen Super Fans*** which is a page created by a “super fan” to have an interactive media site to post a variety of Frozen related things communicate with other Frozen super fans. This public page has more than 7,000 members that have joined. These members post things from Frozen quotes, gifs, pictures, memes, videos, links to other Frozen related things, Frozen events, Frozen related status’ etc. Once fans have posted something to the group, others can interact. They can comment, like, or share these posts. The creator of this Frozen Super Fan Facebook Public Group would be considered a multiplier, because he/she took their love for Frozen to the next level by adding it to media platform in their own way. They wanted to make it into something bigger, and to share it with other people who have the same interest in Frozen as they do. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/612162115595698/

                       

These fans are not just consumers; they are multipliers. They are consumers that have taken their passion for animated musical film Frozen to the next level. They were engaged in a topic, and they put their thoughts into action.

Entry 2

      

               

              Disney’s movie Frozen has a lot of elements of media convergence. This film is a great example of transmedia storytelling, due to its wide array of media and brands. Frozen was originally introduced as a film, which was then expanded to many other mediums, ranging from apps, to toys, to CD’s, to books, and even to a musical stage and ice skating show. All of these elements of franchise are self contained for the most part. One of Frozen’s bigger related medias that Disney came out with was creating a sequel. The first sequel entitled Frozen Fever, premiered on March 13, 2015. Along with this, Disney is also in the process of creating an additional sequel, entitled Frozen 2, that will be release in 2019. Along with the original movie Frozen, Frozen Fever is a computer animated musical fantasy film, although Frozen Fever is considered a short film unlike the original Frozen which is a feature length film.

During this eight-minute sequel, Queen Elsa is celebrating her birthday. Princess Ana and her friends decide to throw her a surprise birthday party. While everyone is setting up for the party, Elsa gets led on to a party treasure hunt, during this activity, Elsa suddenly catches a cold and can’t stop sneezing. Every time Elsa sneezes, the action of this produces a little live snowman. Suddenly, all of these little creatures begin to get into mischief and make a mess of the perfectly decorated surprise party. Meanwhile, Elsa is getting more sick, she feels as if she has ruined Ana’s birthday. Ana tells her not to worry to go rest in bed. Kristoff, Sven, Olaf and the many little snowmen venture up to Elsa’s Ice Castle to surprise her with a birthday cake and a song. In attempt to blow out her birthday candle, Elsa sneezes a giant snowball that hits Prince Hans who is overseas. Then soon after, Ana takes Elsa to get into bed. Elsa begins to thank her for not only a great birthday but for also taking care of her.

                                               

            According to the textbook, Media Convergence by Meikle and Young, William Gibson says that “multimedia is where we have always been going.” We have gone there with Frozen and Frozen Fever. These videos are examples of multimedia platforms, because there is convergence of different elements. Within multimedia platforms, modularity is key when dealing with textual convergence. Each multimedia text remains individual, as well as adopting other different media elements. These elements include elements like, picture, actions, sounds, shapes, which then come together to form a larger collection, but still maintaining their individual characteristics. Both Frozen and Frozen Fever combine text, image, video, audio and animation coming together to create a children’s animated musical film. For example, still pictures were created into animation, then sounds and music were added, so then the digitized media types were then able to come together to make these two Disney films.

           

Link to Frozen Fever Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQRLVxZHKPs