The Project
My biggest struggle throughout this project was probably getting all of the footage that we needed as well as organizing it all in a manner that made sense to the viewers. I am most proud of the final cut because of all the hard work that I put into making the documentary come to life along with some new found editing skills. I would have tried to get a better interview with the professional chili makers if I could change anything because the current one was somewhat spastic. I was personally responsible for the setting up the interviews as well as conducting Zacks and my mothers, the editing, the storage, the transportation, and the uploading. I think through this project Beth, Lina, Sabrina and I became friends, we had a group text and Lina would always keep up with deadlines and remind us that we needed to meet up and work on the video. I feel like my portion was a tad bit heavy but overall I believe that everyone contributed a fair amount.
The Class
I think the documentaries that we watched especially the coal one was beneficial, driving around now I am more aware of the bumper stickers that I see on the back of people's cars that are in memory of a coal worker. The documentaries did not really change the way I think about the campus I think because we all tended to stray away from the campus aspect of each topic. My public speaking has improved when it comes to body language as well as focusing in and being more organized with my thoughts. I did enjoy learning how the different styles of communication function without writing four essays! I do believe that your style was helpful and was also enjoyable however before everyone was comfortable with discussion it felt as if you were trying to pull teeth and made it kinda uncomfortable. But overall the class was an amazing learning opportunity. I might suggest trying a few traditional ice breakers not as deep but rather light and casual. If I could change something about the course it would be the hard grading and limited grade opportunities.
Friday, December 19, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Born Into Coal
The documentary “Born Into Coal” was a well thought out
accumulation of a variety of narrative styles both human interest and standard
narrative. The producers used a variety of different shots to create a personal
connection with the audience, which makes the viewers intrigued with the
lifestyle and hardship that these families endure each and every day. The way the documentary is portrayed in
an emotional rollercoaster that develops human interest while the monotone and
storyline lays the road for a typical standard narrative. A shot that stood out
to me was when Arianne is swimming in the pool in circles behind a house that
looks to be poverty stricken and not so well maintained with the voice over
explaining her hopes and aspirations the film almost creates a sense of visual
rhetoric. The visual rhetoric is presented with the corroded house in the
background with the girl swimming in a pool, which could be thought to be a
luxury while she discusses her luxurious hopes and dreams for the future. This
shot standout because of the way the shot is so large while Arianne looks so
small in the large body of water. Water also symbolizes a lot of metaphorical
things like tranquility, and peacefulness, which could also play a factor as to
why this shot in the documentary, is so intriguing. Overall the documentary is
very emotionally compelling and at the end you feel for the families.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Death Penalty and Visual Rhetoric
Both series of images are intriguing in the way that they are
both unique in their objectives yet essentially portray the same things. I
personally like Hargreaves series better than the last meal project because he is able to channel
personality through the photos while the last meal project is making more of an
attempt to persuade and disgust the audience. Both use an overwhelming amount
of visual to get their point across however I feel like Hargreaves reeks of
visual rhetoric because he portrays the meal as light and adds personality
behind it while he is essentially describing to the audience what a death row
prisoner consumed for his last meal. The last meal project portrays the
prisoner as scary and uses very basic images to represent their meal, and while
I was looking at the photos of the food I felt as if it was being used in a
comical sense, almost cartoon like. I think there are not very many other
presentations that could present such ironic things food and death unless you
did something with like old people on hospice and how they decide to carry on
with their lives. I think that they layout of each of the series is very
important in the overall theme of the pictures each uses red ink to symbolize
death I would imagine and the last meal project uses black and white mug shot
pictures as the background to food creating an overall eerie mood. The red text
on the crumbled notebook paper is an attempt to add to the eerie mood and
almost gives it an official sense. The authors possibly were cuing at an
official thing with the ruled notebook paper however depict it being crumbled to
show that it is in the past or not as important. Both series of images use an
array of characteristics to portray visual rhetoric in regards to the death
penalty and the last supper each prisoner is given.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
REFLECTION
My shark tank proposal speech could have been improved in a number of ways. The first thing that I noticed while watching my video was my body language and demeanor was very light and I could have been more energetic and confident to better engage my audience. However, even without the improvements I felt as if I was able to connect with the audience with a calm tone and some slight body language, probably not the best. While I was presenting I was unaware of how I was crossing my legs and looking up at the ceiling that is something that I would have certainly changed! I expected my speech to be a better than it was, just because I am comfortable going up and talking in front of people but I feel like I may have not had enough fact or organization to go the entire three minutes with a more serious tone. I am unable to see the comments that you made however they probably had something to do with tone and organization, I feel that is what I struggle with the most when presenting speeches. With practice like this hopefully I will be able to improve what I do wrong and become stronger at delivering speeches.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
The Rise of Black Men in the Land of Opportunity
Wesley Morris’ s article “The Rise of the NBA Nerd” is an
accumulation of well thought-out examples that make an attempt to uncover the
reasons as to why black males of stature are dressing in a certain manner. In
the beginning Morris makes an example of Kevin Durant and the way he dressed
during a press conference and makes a wholehearted attempt to explain that
people 10 years earlier would have been degraded or ridiculed for dressing in
such a manner. However the way Morris tries to explain this phenomenon is
really confusing, especially from a white female perspective because the
majority of his examples are people that I personally am not familiar with
aside from Kanye West. Morris goes onto say that this fashion statement is
evolutionary and is a huge change since the days when black males wore slouchy
clothes and could careless. However I believe that this “fashion revolution”
has a deeper meaning than Morris is getting at; black males are now being given
the opportunity to excel to a height that is equal to white males and that is a
huge ideal, he even mentions this in the article “Kids knowing they can be president of the United States, it might be
more crucial to the expansion of black identity” with this statement Morris
allows for his focus on sports to be broadened to a political level which I
praise. This equal opportunity for success calls for an “upgrade” in
appearance in the eyes of the world. It is human nature for people to judge a
book by its cover and these successful black men are becoming more aware of
their social and political appearance and making people respect them in ways
more than just as an athlete. These men are setting themselves up to be looked
at as intellectual individuals and they could not be setting a better example
for the future generations of America. Some may deem this a type of cultural
assimilation however to be equal I do believe we all must take advantage of the
opportunities that present themselves in equal ways; such as the way in which
you dress. I do believe that what we wear can be an argument in many ways
however I do not find this situation as visual rhetoric because these men know
exactly what they are doing and they are taking advantage of social image to
present themselves on top of others. The only possible visual rhetoric in this
situation is a societal image being construed and mixing the image of a “nerd”
or a super white person with the vision of an athlete and in the eyes of the
world it may feel wrong but these guys are completely aware of what they are
doing; and raising the bar for future generations. I strongly believe that their
fashion “statements” are a big shootout to the younger generations to get their
shit together and so far it is making a statement beyond the conference room.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
TED Talk Speech Reflection
There are many aspects that are incorporated into making a good speech
ranging from how loud you are able to project your voice to your
self-confidence. The long list of things can either make or break a speech and
through analyzing the TED talk speeches, all essentially well thought-out and
delivered stories there are things that each of the individuals could work on
to improve the effectiveness of their speech no matter the objective.
In the first video I watched, Zak Ebrahim tells the story of how is father
was a terrorist and how he decided to choose peace once his father presented
him an opportunity to follow in his footsteps. Zak Ebrahim’s delivers the story
with a very calm demeanor with little emotion in his voice. The tone throughout
gives off an almost melancholy vibe rather than emotional. In order to improve Ebrahim’s speech,
once the story is over, I would suggest being a little more lively almost
motivational. He tends to stand very still and talk with his hands and not move
around. The speech has the potential of being more motivational with the use of
syntactical devices such as anaphora as well as a more interactive demeanor.
The speech would be very much improved with slight adjustments in body language
and overall tone.
In the second video I watched, Sally Kohn tells a story about the use of
social media and how it is used to provoke personal attacks on people generally
more focused on people of color, homosexuality, or that are just slightly to
the left of the social norm. She tells her audience that what we click on when
we use the internet is more than just a private encounter but you are actually
more likely to encounter things of the same nature if you do click on it rather
you didn’t. Sally manipulates a light tone throughout the speech as well as
comedy to keep her audience intrigued. However, Sally could manipulate her body
language and voice projection to emphasis her points as well as improve her
speech overall. The speech however overall was delivered very well, slightly
confusing in some aspects however
overall the delivery and effectiveness was great.
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