Thursday, March 27, 2014

Born Into Coal blog

Born into Coal is a documentary about the daughter of a coal miner and the "Coal Queen Pageant". The documentary starts with a scene from the pageant where they briefly mention coal. The next shot is on the character that the documentary is following Arianna Bailey, It shows B-roll of her with her talking as narration. I thought this was an effective way to start the documentary because it established the scene and introduce the main focus of the documentary really smoothly. The next scene is to show family values and it does this by introducing the mother and father through an interview and showing relevant B-roll in the process. It then cuts to a different family and it uses the audio of an interview from the mother and father of a different family and B-rol. The other family is meant to show the more "Coal" aspect weather than directly following Arianna Bailey. The middle of the documentary does a good job of showing the dangers of coal and the horrors but it doesn't really seem to follow Arianna Bailey as it seemed like it was going to at the beginning; more so just the families. Then at the end it connects it back to the pageant and to me it didnt seem very fluid.

It was moderately effective in showing the dangers of coal but when he said that he was like a doctor it kind of lost ethos for me. The father on camera was really poor and you could tell he was uncomfortable.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Group Contract for wildcat service dogs

Interviews
·      Sam
o   Depending on scheduling, Different people will be doing Interviews
o   Scheduling Interviews is separate from the scheduling section
Filming
·      Morgan
o   Zach has go pro
o   Sam, Cole, Kaycie (Must attend for some filming )
           
Script writing
·      Kaycie
o   Everyone is expected to contribute when doing story boarding
o   Must be approved before final
Sound recording
·      Morgan
o   Goes along with Filming for the most part
Film editing
·      Zach
o   Everyone will watch and approve sections
Sound editing
·      Zach
o   Everyone will watch and approve sections
Storyboarding
·      Everyone
o   Everyone must attend initial storyboarding
o   Everyone must see and approve final storyboard
Scheduling
·      Cole
o   In charge of coordinating with Sam
o   Keeping in contact with Organization as well as the trainers
o   Notifying group of events as they come
            

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Visual Rhetoric of Newegg vs. Amazon

Both amazon and Newegg have somewhat similar audiences in that they are fairly similar in there purpose; there audience is essentially everyone, Newegg is geared a little more towards techy people. Newegg is essentially amazon except it specializes in electronics and only electronics; it has a much larger variety in the specific sections associated with electronics than amazon is and this is really clear upon the first few seconds of looking at the home pages. This isn't to say that Newegg only sells electronics, they also sell everything.

When you first get on to amazon you scroll down the page and you see deals and discounts off to the side and as you scroll down the page there are small catalogs of various genres of items, there is no limit to what you can buy on amazon and the front page does a good job of showing this

as you can see there a very diverse selection and even though they don't sample every genre my brain sort of fills in the cracks, well if they sell phone accessories and bags then they probably sell pretty much everything else, is what coms to my mind.

When you first look at Newegg however your eyes are bombarded with electronics, there are a few advertisements on the front page for other things but the main purpose of the site is clearly electronics. this is because the majority of the items listed as "Hot" are all electronics or accessories for other electronics. they have one advertisement for a neckless which seems to be a feeble attempt to show that they sell other things but you can clearly tell there targeted audience.


Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Visual Rhetoric

Both articles, No Seconds and The Last Meal Project, were conceptually the same except they went about the issue in different ways. No seconds gave more personal information along with a higher quality picture of the food; In some cases lack of food. Where as The Last Meal Project gave less personal bios but a picture of there face in the background.

I felt like No Seconds had more power too it than the Last Meal Project even though you got to see the prisoners face in the article, I never felt sympathetic seeing a prisoners face. No Seconds had little personal bios that showed mistreatment from the prison and people who were denied such a basic right as the last meal and that had more of an affect on me personally. Visual rhetoric has much more power when complimented with text.

The Last Meal Project also seemed to be a lot less high quality because the pictures of the prisoners in the background were very low quality and the pictures of there food were side by side instead of on an actual plate, and they didn't seem to compliment the pictures on the back.

The Last Meal Project is undoubtedly more informative. they had little bits and pieces of facts about the death penalty throughout the slide show and No Seconds had a few facts spread throughout but nowhere near as much as the Last Meal Project.

Overall, Id say that No Seconds was more powerful because it used really bright colors and humanized the prisoners a lot better than the sketchy mug shots presented behind there food.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

my Shark Tank proposal review

There were lots of areas in my speech that you could tell were less prepared than they could have been and there were some awkward pauses where I was looking at the ground thinking of what came next in the speech. This could easily be fixed by preparing a little better; I didn't exactly have much time to prepare because there was a lot of stuff on my plate at the time and I could have done a lot better. This also plays into the fact that it was far too short of a presentation not even making the bare minimum of 3 minutes.

A big issue I noticed is my speech wasn't very linear, I didnt know exactly where I was going with it the whole time and I just spoke what came to mind and I believe I left out some things that I would have liked to say and that probably would have gotten me over that three minute marker.

Some nervous ticks that I noticed, however not as bad as I expected, was that I kept saying uh. It wasn't like I was saying it after very sentence but it could definitely use some work. There was also me looking down at the ground, this is something I definitely need to work on for next time and I think that will come with better preparation, not having to think as much. My volume could have been a little more pronounced, it sounded like I had spit in my mouth or something.

I think that I did well with my hands; I usually have really awkward arms or just put them in my pockets but I did a lot better in that respect. I also think I did well with my body, I moved around a bit and I didn't have a rocking motion or anything. My speed of voice was impeccable for me, I usually talk at 100 mph but I brought it down a lot for the proposal

Overall I think I did pretty well in the amount of time I had to prepare for it, I had like a solid hour or so to prepare and I was fairly distracted so an hour is being incredibly generous.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Annoying Questions

Every time I tell someone that I am a life guard I get the question, have you saved anyone? every single time someone asks what I do, I get this question and its so annoying. I never know how to respond because even had I saved someone its not like its a bragging right, Its like yeah I do my job sometimes, and I feel like had I actually had to save someone I wouldn't go around saying "yeah, I saved someone, Im the shit". I think I'm a little to modest for that.

When people ask me if I'm into any sports and I tell them that I used to be a swimmer, I always get the question, "why did you quit?" because I wanted too, maybe its something personal and you don't need to know my life. Even if it wasn't personal I probably don't care to talk about it because its over and I'm sick of answering the question. I usually just respond with cause because I hate that question.

I can't really think of any other persistent questions so flips side to this, Questions I hate asking people

Whats you're name?
    Its awkward and I don't like it, I usually just creep on a paper they've done to get there name or ask someone else.

where are you from?
    this one I never understand why people ask, I frankly don't care where someone is from, only that there here in front of me now.

How are you?
     Its always good, everyone is always good, unless its a special situation, then its justified.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Response to Joe Kowan: How I beat stage fright

http://www.ted.com/talks/joe_kowan_how_i_beat_stage_fright.html

This speech was really interesting to me and popped out to me because the credibility that inherently came with the topic. His topic was that he had incredibly terrible stage fright and he found this way to get over it; his credibility stemmed from his confidence when speaking as well as his conclusion of singing this song he wrote that emphasized the points of getting over stage fright. The method he spoke of involved admitting your fear to it and learning to make it work for you rather than against you; in a sense, don't let your body control your mind.

He really stood out among the rest because you could tell he was being honest, he looked like he would be awkward person in front of a crowd and he used that trait to give the speech a comical aspect. It also helped that his awkwardness and lack there off contributed to the main idea of the speech, which was how he overcame stage fright.

There was one part that didn't really feel right is when he asked someone on the side of the stage for water, it felt awkward and strange; especially seeing him drink it, it was uncomfortable and took away from the main idea.

What I liked most however occurred directly after and that was his "Stage Fright" song, he alludes to this song the whole speech and said its how he got over his stage fright and he finishes off his speech by singing it. This was the main reason that I chose this speech is because he does an amazing job of tying everything together and it contributes to the ethos as well; this song that he talks about isn't just some made up story, it is actually how he got over his stage fright.