The two forms I think influenced me most were the sequential art project and the podcast, because they both made me think about “writing” in a language I do not use very often.  I do not think of myself as a very artistic person, especially when talking about drawn images, so both the stencil project and the sequential art project pushed my boundaries that way.  I don’t think that the stencil project pushed me outside my text-based boundaries because I patterned words in the shape of letters in order to represent my subject.  The sequential art project, on the other hand, really challenged me to think how I could express my self without using only images, though I did incorporated a rebus at the very end of the project.  I think the most challenging part of that project was searching for the images I needed.  Trying to translate the picture I saw in my head into text for the search engine and then having the Google interpret my text back into a picture form was sometimes difficult. The difficulties I had made me wonder what an image search would be like if I could input an idea of an image rather than have to go through the middle-man of text.

The podcast was the complete opposite of the sequential art project because I had to express my self using only sound and still have my message be clear.  Most of the writing I have done previously was not meant to be read out loud and the script created for podcast was meant to do just that.  I used a more conversational tone to help my audience relate rather than the scholarly tone I usually adopt for academic projects.  In creating the podcast I also had to think about non-vocal sounds to help me express myself, which was something I had never encountered before.

Though I have not had the opportunity to utilize much of the skills I learned through this class (because I am an English major and most of my assignments revolve around the text), I hope to incorporate them in the future, possibly in the Spring semester as I am taking a Shakespeare class (I’m thinking podcast).  I do think that we live in a world full of multi-media expressions and that this class enabled me to more fully understand the implications of this trend.

And for your enjoyment, I present the two songs that always pop into my head when thinking about this class:

Info 303 (warning this song contains some profanity)
3 Oh! 3

Writing Across Media aka WAM (warning this video contains men wearing DayGlo short shorts)

WHAM!

We then settled on using video as our medium as it seemed to give us the most versatility in presenting our topic.  We then decided to use various advertisements (both still image and video) as well as video clips that we would re-purpose (bricolage) in order to explore commodity fetishism (another topic touched on in chapter 6).

2) composing: Finding the images and clips we needed was fairly easy, mainly because we focused on well-known brands and news stories.  There were a couple snags in searching, finding an ad about a product making to person cry was impossible.  We then had problems actually putting the video together because neither of our computers were very helpful with the last video project and most of the University computers did not allow downloading.  We finally went to the College of Media computer lab and that worked for a while.  Davis carried the weight here because it is nearly impossible for two people to edit video at the same time.

3) presenting: While we were presenting the video, I was worried whether or not we had adequately represented the theory as our focus was so narrow, but I feel that the clips/ads we chose were recognizable enough and our composition of the film translated the message of commodity fetishism very well.   I think the fact that we kind of organized the material in an essay form helped the audience follow the presentation.

4) post-production/critique: I think that our audience received our project very well.  We included timely clips of Black Friday and since we are very familiar with the materialism of American advertising, especially around the holidays, our audience could relate to our topic.  I do wish we had been able to incorporate more of the theory into our project, but I realize that the time limit and the depth of the theory we explored (even in only 2 chapters) was not conceivable.

Here are the sites we used to gather facts and clip for the project. All of our still images were simple Google searches and all our videos were found on Youtube.

Labor Stats:

“An estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labour – one in six children in the world.”
-”Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse.” UNICEF. Web. 2 Dec 2009. <http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_childlabour.html>.

“Over the last two decades of economic reform, millions of workers have been laid off without due compensation, while millions of others continue to be exploited, working long hours in hazardous conditions.” –Chinese Labor Bulletin

- “Imprisoned Workers.” China Labour Bulletin. China Labour Bulletin, Web. 2 Dec 2009. <http://www.china-labour.org.hk/en/node/100014>.

“Ten years after the adoption of the International Labour Organization’s Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour on 12 May 1999, there is little evidence that the Chinese government, which ratified the convention in 2002, is making a determined effort to tackle the problem.  The government still does not publish statistics on the extent of child labour in China, and its primary concern seems to be to keep the problem out of sight and out of mind.”

- “Child labour remains a widespread and serious problem in China.” China Labour Bulletin. China Labour Bulletin, Web. 2 Dec 2009. <http://www.china-labour.org.hk/en/node/100491>.

Video Clips:

“Go Ho Ho – Gap 2009 Holiday Commercial.” YouTube. Web. 2 Dec 2009. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVMPWlWDvsI>.

“Black Berry Commercial.” YouTube. Web. 2 Dec 2009. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iQ9oepKSc>.

2009 Black Friday Stat:

“ShopperTrak’s data showed Black Friday began the season with a large spend as retail sales totaled $10.66 billion … the largest dollar amount ever spent on the day … Black Saturday … $6.107 billion spent.” -

- “Black Friday Weekend Sales Rise 1.6 Percent as Compared to 2008.” ShopperTrak. Web. 2 Dec 2009. <http://www.shoppertrak.com/black-friday-weekend-sales-rise-16-percent-compared-2008>.

2. Production: Shooting went really well. We went walking around campus and got all the shots we needed within one afternoon, with the addition of the wheelchair basketball tournament the weekend.  The only glitch we had was that we were unable to interview Kate due to miscommunication and illness.  However, when we interviewed Carmen from DRES she actually gave us enough footage that worked for both the objective and subjective parts of the project, so we did not actually need to interview anyone else.

3. Editing: The editing process was a little rough for me. The Flip Camera we used to shoot video did not work well with my computer. For whatever reason the Flip Camera wouldn’t upload video only audio. I tried about 10 different computers, until Georgia sent me a link to download this converter, so that I could actually see what we shot. After I finally got the clips to load correctly I didn’t have much trouble putting together the actual video. In keeping with the subjective viewpoint I wanted to focus on Carmen by tying in the B-roll to her words, keeping the pace of the video as smooth as possible, and by using fades to create the illusion of a continuous conversation.

4. Post-Production/Critique: Since I haven’t received a whole lot of feedback via comments on my blog and I was unable to show it in class, I will critique myself to a certain extent and possibly add more later. The one thing that I would change would be the first section about the buses. I think that I lost the personal impact by not incorporating one of Carmen’s own stories about her experience with the service. I think it was too much in the “official” voice instead of the personal.

I don’t believe that we can ever go back to the medieval idea of authorship, mainly because of our idea of ourselves as individuals foremost rather than as being part of a group.  We want to be recognized for what we alone have accomplished. We want the credit especially when someone else is using our ideas; it’s as if to say, “I had this idea first, this new person is just using my idea.” Our modern copyright laws are geared toward this mode of thinking, so they trap us within it as well.

It is true that modern technological advances, especially the internet, are harder to define and restrain with the existing copyright laws.  The availability of information from sources that are often difficult to cite allows for an authorship model closer to that of the medieval time, but it is a sketchy at best.

Class Question: Write about how you think Ede & Lunsford’s discussions of authorship and collaboration apply to the collaborative video project you’re working on.

I think that Ede and Lunsford’s point is a good one, because most of the research based projects I have completed in my academic career have had multiple sources and many of those sources have multiple authors, but when citing them I usually only put the first name down.  I believe that the highest contributors to the research are usually listed first so in that sense it makes sense to cite the person who did the most work.  But what if they were listed first simply because they have the highest degree or are alphabetically first?

I think that last point of alphabetical listing is most relevant to undergraduate and even lower levels of education.  Most students try to share work as much as possible so everyone gets an equal participation grade, and when the time comes to put names on the paper, the only really fair way to assign places is alphabetically.  You didn’t choose your name so you have no control over it.  I think that grade school concept carries over into the higher academic levels, until money and accolade begin to be involved.

2. What is the difference between concepts of medieval authorship and modern scientific authorship?

3. Are Ede and Lundsford the actual authors of “Intertext?” All they did was bring together many different quotes on the same theme of collaborative writing. Possibly discuss the artist Girl Talk in your answer.

Ede, Lisa and Andrea Lundsford. “Ch. 3: The Concept of Authorship: Explorations and (Dis)Closures.” Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. 72-102.

Ede, Lisa and Andrea Lundsford. “Intertexts.” Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990.

I think that editing can change the meaning of a video, because someone besides the viewer can tweak the images and content to emphasize or gloss over aspects of what was actually recorded.  Juxtaposing different scenes out of temporal order is one example of this emphasizing.  Deleting scenes is one way to gloss over aspects of the film that the director/editor did not want shown, in order to follow his/her artistic vision.  Even the filmmaker’s vision can be seen as a form of editing because if their focus is so centered on what they want to portray, underlying plots or issues may be ignored.

However, the real question is whether or not film editing (especially in a documentary) is any different from editing text. I tend toward a definite yes, the reason being that an author of a textual form, or even a scripted movie, has more creative and inventive control over the content of the work.  Documentaries, on the other hand, are supposed to record real life events; they are supposed to simply act as an eye on the world.  Editing can skew or cloud that eye’s vision and then the audience is actually not viewing the truth of the real events.

Class Question: Based on Hampe’s concept of “visual evidence” and editing, do you believe documentary is objective? why or why not?

I don’t believe anything, including and especially documentaries, can be absolutely objective.  Everything is made with a goal in mind and a specific perspective.  editing especially contributes to the subjective nature of documentaries, because film makers get to pick and choose what the audience sees.  In order for a documentary to be completely objective, a film maker would have to show all that they observed, with as little editing as possible.  This method would not only create an extremely long film, but it would also be a very boring one.

More generally speaking, everyone has certain subjective biases and there is no way to completely escape those biases to get to the objective level of issues.  Furthermore, we relate to everything better through a human interface.  Inanimate objects cannot communicate and animals cannot talk in any language we can understand.  Even this could be perceived as a human-centric bias. Everything is subjective on some level.

Then “This American Life” was added into the mix and I decided to add a section on feminism, because the book has a feminist moral. I was also going to use Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” as a transition.

Then the whole issue of copyright was added so I switched to rewriting my own fairytale. I tried writing a few times, but hated all of my attempts. I got frustrated and started procrastinating on Wikipedia and the idea for my podcast was born!

2. Recording: I found recording to be more difficult than I had imagined. I kept mispronouncing words or getting lost. I ended up partitioning my script into several sections and doing multiple recordings of each section. The recording process was further complicated by the fact that I didn’t realize I could record straight to Audacity when I first started recording. Thankfully, I discovered how to record straight to Audacity before I had completely recorded the podcast.

3. Editing: The biggest issue I had whilst editing was getting my various tracks to meet up without awkward lengths of silence or overlapping. Figuring out appropriate sound effects was easy, because I went in knowing exactly what I wanted. Figuring out levels for the competing sounds as well as the level of fades was a little difficult, mainly because I was unused to Audacity itself as well as to thinking about sound.

4. Post-Production: Overall, I think my podcast went over very well. It was a topic to which most of the class could relate. There were a few critiques of my use of sound effects, 1) that they were cliche and 2) that they could have been integrated more smoothly. Personally, I wanted cliche sound effects, it was part of the humor and easily recognizable. After listening to the podcast again, I do agree that I should have tried to integrate them a little better.

The other critiques I got were on the form/content of my podcast. I liked the idea (I think Brian said it) of changing the ending a little so that it sounded like I didn’t have a set plan for the next podcast; it would have really driven home the procrastination theme. The idea of slowing down during my examples did cross my mind, but because some of the links I used were buried in the article, it wasn’t feasible for the time limit.

Hampe, Barry. “Visual Evidence.” Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming and Editing Documentaries of Real Events. Henry Holt, 1997. 49-68.