Take the last 15 minutes or so of class and start drafting your director’s statement for this final project. To do so, I’d like you to step back from the details of today’s editing work and remind us (and perhaps yourself) and clarify what your main purpose in making this film is. What do you hope to achieve by creating it in the way that you are? What effect(s) do you want it to have on your viewers? What would you say is the main argument or claim that you see yourself making?
Then, shift gears and start reflecting on the strategies and/or techniques that you’re using as both a rhetor and documentary film maker to develop and sustain your visual argument about your topic. What appeals are you making and how are you making them? How do you hope they will relate to your main purpose and support your claim? To what extent are these strategies similar to the ones you made as a writer? How are they different (either in terms of design or effect)?
I think that in general the main purpose for this film is to bring attention to the issue of political polarization in the United States today. Hopefully through the film we will be able to bring up some attention in general and then we could with the remaining time try to present some of the solution for the issues. We are trying to create it in a documentary sort of manner, which will hopefully be able to appeal to people who are our age. Depending on where we are at we may try to add a little bit of humor into the film to try and lighten the subject even though it is quite a heavy matter. We are hoping that our film will be able to convince people that political polarization is an issue that we should care about. We are trying for a sort of “wow” factor from the audience. Shifting gears, I think that we are definitely trying to establish our ethos on the subject and gather some unbiased information about it. We are trying to make an informative argument that will hopefully make the viewer uncomfortable with where the country is currently at. Additionally we think that this documentary has appropriate timing, as it is coming at a time where our country is extremely polarized. We hope these appeals will combine with our main claim to remain appropriate with this subject, without feeling too forced. Our topic is not necessarily something we can inject with pathos but we believe that ethos will be a more appropriate appeal with our main topic. I think that these appeals exactly parallel the ones that I used in my persuasive essay, as in the essay I was trying to really present an ethos filled argument. They will differ, because the visual nature will present people I mentioned in my essay in reality discussing their topics which should provide a much better presentation of our argument.
ReplyDeleteWith this short film, we hope to draw attention to the issue of political polarization in the United States and see what professionals and the average citizen alike think of the issue. Because our audience is the average voter, someone that may not be aware of the issue and how it affects them, we want our effect on the audience to be that almost of shock. Like they are supposed to say, "Woah, something needs to be done about this." Going along with this, our main claim is really that political polarization exists, it is polluting our political system, and something needs to be done to begin the process of fixing it. The strategies that we are going to use are ethos, and, by default, kairos. Our ethos will be built by the fact that we have footage from a speech by the secretary of defense. This shows that we have done our homework, and we have invested our time and interest into this issue. Also, that we have footage of an interview from a political science professor. As far as kairos goes, this is timely because the presidential election is coming up, and every day we are bombarded with political parties. These strategies, among other film oriented strategies, should help our argument because people will listen to us and take our issue seriously.
ReplyDeleteFor my, Visualizing Social Justice Project, I decided to adapt my social justice essay regarding the issue of abortion to film. I felt that this issue possessed kairos, or timeliness, due to the stringent abortion legislature pending in my home state of Oklahoma. In addition to this legislature, the panel, which recently testified against Obama’s birth control benefit, requiring the federal government to cover birth control, was entirely comprised of men. I believe that this is a fitting time to address the fact that men dominate the debate over women’s health. Due to this exigency, a rhetorical situation emerged. My main argument is not only that women need to stand up for their rights, but also that pro-life individuals need to rethink their attacks on women. Thus, I’m not only addressing pro-choice advocates, but I am also targeting those who are attempting to make abortion inaccessible and shameful for women. In contrast to the tone of my essay, I’m a little more outspoken with my views in the video. I’m less sensitive to the rhetorical constraints of this issue. Obviously, many pro-life individuals believe that abortion is wrong due to their religious beliefs. While I’m not disparaging their core values, I am encouraging them to reconsider their perspective, and how it adversely affects women’s rights. My intent is to persuade those that are pro-life to stop considering the unborn child as the only victim. It is unjust to disregard the woman in this situation. Abortion is a complex decision with many dimensions. I’m simply asking those against abortion, to reconsider the difficulty of an abortion decision.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of this film is to look into the Gender Neutral Bathroom experiment on DU’s campus particularly in relation to the larger LGBTQ community. We want to portray the opinions on the matter as well as show how this could benefit those who suffer because of gendered bathrooms. I think that this film should be able to get some people thinking about bathrooms in a way that they have never had to before. People are unaware of the affect a private space like a bathroom can have on a person. We want to investigate the societal and legislative changes, and the question as to their necessity, in regards to allowing all people to feel safe and comfortable when they have to go to the bathroom outside of their home. In particular, we are focusing in on the affects of such in the local DU community.
ReplyDeleteTo make our argument we are using a variety of different clips of people. I then hope to overlay some of these with more artistically appealing footage. We appeal to ethos for ourselves largely through a bit of expertise on the history of gendered bathrooms which we will voice over in part. We also appeal to ethos for each of our people, usually through their qualifications such as being a professor. We then appeal to pathos through the people in our clips, especially Alexa and Christopher because both are non-gender-conforming which means that they are the people who we are trying to say need to be considered. Theoretically, the whole thing will be based in logos about our argument, if we can accomplish this. These are essentially the same strategies used in my written work, they merely are portrayed through a different medium.
My film has two main purposes- to show that homelessness is a problem, and that individual people can do to little things to help solve the problem. I am using the interview with Don (a man who was once homeless) as the main part of my video in showing how homelessness is a problem, and give the audience a reason to want to help solve it. I am using an interview because I feel that an individual who has experienced what I am trying to get across is most credible in showing what it is like to be homeless. By hearing how hard being homeless is, I hope it will play on the audience’s emotions and give them a reason to help end the problem. It is giving a face to the problem. I am going to add some text to strengthen my argument. The text will be interspersed with the footage of Don, and will be there to dramatize what he says and apply it on a larger scale. For example, when Don states how he became homeless, I will then insert some text (written or audio) stating the main reasons why people become homeless.
ReplyDeleteI have footage of a local group making food and then serving it to the homeless, which I will use to show that individual people can take a few hours out of their week to help people in need. I will also add some text about what other communities are doing and their results, to show that the little contributions do help, and motivate people to take action.
I believe that the main point of my and Kathleen's film is to highlight the societal changes that need to accompany the legislative changes to create a society that treats every member with the same amount of respect. We are doing this by focussing on a part of everybody's every day life, going tio the bathroom. It is an activity that most of us participate in with out even thinking about it, but people who are non gender conforming are forced to define themselves every day with a word that they might not feel comfortable with, at the same time possibly risking their safety. The possibilities that arise when a person who is non gender conforming goes to the bathroom can sometimes deter them from doing so and not going to the bathroom can lead to health problems. We want to show people that there is a lot of grey area to the word gender and differences that we need to be aware of. Educating people on these differences is the best way to create a more understanding and loving society.
ReplyDeleteStrategies that we use in the video include talking with students who live in halls at all levels of participation in the experiment, a gender and women's studies professor, a former DU student who when he was here did a lot with the LGBTQ community and a library technology specialist who happend to be trans. We are also going to interview the two RAs who started the experiment. The multiple perspectives that we are bringing to our topic is our main rhetorical technique. We are also including the history surrounding public bathrooms and basing our film on an event that happened recently giving our film more ethos and kairos.
I started to compose my video with having the first section containing all my footage about Cherry Creek High School and then the second half of the video with my footage from Abraham Lincoln High School. By doing this I am hoping to create a sense of the contrast and discrepancies between the two schools. This hopefully will highlight my main point about the problems within public education in the Colorado system. I want to convey to the audience the unjust nature in having such unequal distribution of resources, and how this will impact the experience of students. I was able to find a lot of footage on activities that happen for a student attending Cherry Creek. At the beginning of my video I try to quickly display all of these videos to create a tone of abundance within the funding and activities at Cherry Creek High School. When switching the discussion to Abraham Lincoln High School, the activity footage looks very different. I am hoping that this represents the tone in which I am representing Lincoln High School.
ReplyDeleteMy main goal in making this film is to show the disparity of food access between affluent neighborhoods and low-income food deserts. The issue of low access to healthy and affordable foods in low-income neighborhoods is not something that most people think or know about. I hope to inform my viewers of the injustice food desert residents face when forced to choose between traveling long distances to a grocery store or buying unhealthy foods at nearby convenience stores. I want my audience to become aware of this issue, inform others about it, and possibly even be moved to help out at a local community garden that works in supplying low-access households with fresh produce. I plan to do this by creating a video in which shots and interviews of suburban grocery stores and their costumers are contrasted with those of fringe food venues and residents of Sun Valley—one of Denver’s poorest food desert neighborhoods. Also, by interviewing Judy Elliot from Denver Urban Gardens, I will add the opinions and knowledge of a local food desert expert.
ReplyDeleteAs for the technical aspects of my film, I think the audience will be most persuaded by the disparity of the shots of Sun Valley and the suburban areas. I think it will largely be a pathetic appeal, as food is something we are all deeply and forever connected to; feelings of outrage and guilt may ensue from seeing the sever deprivation of something that we take for granted. In my essay I used a very similar appeal. By informing the audience of the facts, they were bound to realize that they take their access to healthy food for granted.
The purpose of our film is to persuade our audience that we should be taking more measures to ensure the humane treatment of animals both as pets and as sources of food. We want those who view our films to become more aware of some of the ways we treat animals and also to perhaps rethink their views on how animals should be treated. We want them to feel sympathy for the types of animals we focus on and wish to see more humane treatment of both pets and farm animals. Our main argument will be that the way we currently treat animals in this country is inhumane and needs to be changed.
ReplyDeleteOur most effective tool in this video is going to be appeals to pathos. The way we will appeal to pathos will be by showing different images and clips of abused animals. We have found a few Youtube clips that show either farm animals being abused or domestic animals being rescued by the humane society. We also have several images of domestic animals who had recently been rescued by abusive owners. We plan on setting some of these images and clips to sad sounding music in order to increase the effectiveness of our emotional appeals.
We will also increase our ethos through some of the interviews we have conducted. One part of our video addresses the argument that since the Bible states that humans have dominion over the animal kingdom, we shouldn't be obligated to treat them humanely. To address this, we interviewed the reverend of the chapel on campus to get his perspective on this argument. By having an expert opinion on the Bible, our ethos will be somewhat increased. Other interviews we have conducted are of people who had personal stories about animal abuse. Hopefully, we will be able to get an interview with someone from the Dumb Friends League, but at this point it doesn't seem too likely.
The point of my film regarding the influence of corporations in elections was to inform people of the issue and really get their minds thinking about the issue. I think for anything to change in the world of campaign finance, people need to start thinking about the issue and question if it current state is best. Should corporations have as much power as they do in elections? Or even do they have power? People need to start thinking about these questions.
ReplyDeleteOne of the strategies that I hope my film invokes is the appeal to pathos. I build on the common ground that people in the United states value their democracy and their right to vote. Using this common ground, emotions begin to stir because those values become threatened with the presence of corporations in elections. I added to credibility of my claim by citing people with first hand election experience. Their view can testify to the effect corporate finance has on elections.
Rachael and I analyzed how student debt is impacting students at the University of Denver. We interviewed four different students, asking them the same questions, and then compared their answers. With each question, we offer and discuss various statistics and national trends which highlight the debt epidemic nationally. We also included both private and public institutions in the determination of these statistics, hence the lower numbers than most DU students will incure. This project was interesting, because it allowed us to vocalize an argument that otherwise would have been written down, as well as allowing us to visually back support our arguments, making them more poignant. Our target audience consists of a range of intellectuals: primarily and prospective college students, as well as, parents of students. Our aim was to simply raise awareness about the situation, as well as point out the reasons to why it was a social justice issue that must be addressed.
ReplyDeleteWe found it interesting that topics like the debt graduated with, first-year income, and the true cost of a private education were among the topics that most students do not even know. When supplied with the actual national averages, and in showing the close correspondence to DU’s statistics, we appealed to the audience’s logos, since logical examination of the facts leads to the conclusion that the cost of college tuition is too high. Additionally, the facts and perspectives provided in the interviews were appeals to pathos. For example, no one wants to move back in with their parents after college, so hearing students say that it was something they were strongly considering after college evokes pity, which helps people come around to thinking that the cost of tuition is actually too high. Also, actually seeing the looks on the interviewees’ faces as they confessed what aspects of their educational debt that they didn’t know, especially how much debt they are incurring from just four years of undergrad explicitly appeals to the audiences’ pathos within our film.
The aim of our video is to raise awareness about the increasingly important issue of college debt, as well as inform people about the financial aid process and what happens after college. To accomplish this, we interviewed four students, asking them questions about debt, the financial aid reward process, their income after graduation, and tuition prices. Our primary audience is current college students, prospective students, and the parents of college students everywhere.
ReplyDeleteOur film really uses pathos and logos to appeal to our audience and make our argument more convincing. Additionally it has great kairos since the issue of college debt and student loans is one that has been coming to the forefront in media over the past few years. In particular, one thing that really appeals to everyone is worries about money and figuring out how to make ends meet. This stirs up emotions and allows audience members to relate to the film, making the argument more effective.