Badly Worded

Final Video Project

rmpease — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:12:29 +0000

The original arguments I planned to make in my film turned out to be a bit broader than I could fit into the time constraints. So I nuanced the discussion down to how money made by universities for collegiate athletics should be distributed, with a focus on whether players themselves should be paid.

The first half of my video is shot with quick cuts. It’s the slowest of the material, and I wanted to keep it interesting for people who may not be inclined to caring about this argument in the first place.

For the second half though, I really wanted the attention on me and my argument. I slowed/stopped the cuts and simply set it against a boring, undistinct background with nowhere to go but look at me.

The very last seconds of my argument are a solution to the problem I spend detailing for the first couple of minutes. During class this seemed to be something people keyed in on. So I wanted to be sure to include a working option instead of just complaints.

Video Assignment Proposal

rmpease — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:28:15 +0000

My proposal is to do a narrative video with a script that explores the role of competitiveness in collegiate sports and the role of fans in the equation. I want to use source material from coach’s press conferences to game footage organically to tell a story between a set of character’s as they discuss the prompt. First, I want to use software to start with a cold open of Jim Tressel giving a speech on YouTube about fans taking a loss to seriously and pan out into the “real world”, using the clip as a catalyst for the discussion that will spill over into several scenes. Each character will embody a different opinion or issue on the matter. I’d like to experiment with a long shot, cutting the camera as few times as possible and attempting to put it all into one scene. This is purely a stylistic choice that I’m willing to abandon in the case it doesn’t serve the purpose of the rhetoric.

My backup proposal is to do a similar argument, but with less characters. Instead I want to show two characters playing a game of NCAA Football on the Playstation while discussing the same prompt. Here we can subtly talk about the marketization of players (such as video game licensing) even though the players themselves don’t get paid. The exchange should be heated, and ebb and flow with the excitement of the game they are playing, simulating both the debate of competition, the culture around it, and the fans place in it.

Solutions

rmpease — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:21:28 +0000

Three hundred million Americans are looking to those of us in this room for solutions.
-E. Gordon Gee, College Board Forum (Oct 21, 2009)

My goal was to keep the rhetoric of the photos as possible. For this particular project, I didn’t want to hand hold the viewer to some preset emotional response. This is because I myself don’t have a particular emotional response to this issue, I have many. On one hand, I think its reckless to have one of the most financially lucrative establishments in the world next to deplorable living conditions. On the other hand, it’s not necessarily Ohio State’s responsibility. And ofcourse there is an infinite number of possibilities in between or even outside of these two thoughts.

It may seem lazy not to have a strong opinion of this, but I think the it’s more important to have a discussion of this than to pretend that there is some “correct” answer. We all know there isn’t a correct answer. As someone with a political science background, I often enjoy the discrepency in different people’s opinions. Give them the same basic, minimalist facts. And watch people with their own minds come to completely different conclusions. That’s what I did with pictures. Large pictures and small, bare minimum of facts. And then watch the discussion. It’s the getting there, not the destination.

Audio Narrative

rmpease — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:48:06 +0000

Link

Alexander Boyes. “The Resolution of Mr. Clouds.” Online audio clip. Opsound.org. Accessed October 12, 2009 Creative Commons License

Audio Narrative Rough Draft

rmpease — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:08:26 +0000

A story about an experience learning to read, write or use technology. This is a prompt I see about once a year since early high school. Which is unfortunate because I don’t really have an answer for this one. Not one that is particularly interesting anyways. I mean, let’s be honest, were talking about reading and writing here. It’s not exactly action packed, or even action loosely assembled. Hell, in this regard they barely qualify as verbs.

I think the closest thing I have to a decent story here, occurred less than a year ago. It was a basic English class where we did insufferable analytical work on the writings of some poor dead writer who never did anything to us. Well around comes final paper time and sure enough the prompts meandered into bold and scholastic terriotry with such unique gems as “what does melville’s bartleby represent in the modern age” and “who does Young Goodman Brown….represent whatever boring thing that nobody really cares about.” The point is that I was taking three other similar English classes that quarter and I didn’t have the physical ability to pull this mind numbing song and dance again. I would reach for my pen and then start convulsing like the dead ghost of Ernest Hemingway was shaking me around screaming “YOU THINK I WOULD HAVE WASTED MY TIME WITH THIS? GET YOUR ASS OUTSIDE AND HUNT AN ELEPHANT!!!”

Now I’m a Hemingway fan. I love Douglas Adams and modern day wise I love me some Aaron Sorkin or Bill Simmons. What ties these guys together is the ability to get across beautiul and important concepts in a way that doesn’t put their audience into a coma. So I went balls to the walls on this one and started a 5 page analytical essay on “Bartlebly, the Scrivener” with a joke. I don’t remember if it was particularly funny or not, and if you’ve listened this far to me then you can probably assume it wasn’t, but that’s not the point. Throw in a couple extra jokes, the occasional pun and an impressive tangent on mayoneise and I was done. Now the paper still answered the prompt. It said everything I wanted to on the subject, or at least what the TA wanted to hear. Scared out of my mind about would happen to my already dismal GPA, I uploaded it to Carmen and waited.

A week goes by and I finally get the results. Sure enough at the top of the paper in a menacing red text are the words, “This is not how you write an academic paper.” Of course right next to that was the letter grade in a less ominous looking ‘A’.

This was the result that I always wanted. But now that I had it, I didn’t know what to make of it or do with it. Was it a blank check to do it again? Probably not. The words, “This is not how you write an academic paper” certainly look like a do not enter sign, but with an ‘A’ it feels a bit more like it has a knowing wink attached. I debated for some time as to whether I should ask for clarification, but that’s a hard e-mail to write. “So did you give me an A because you don’t care that much about your job, you felt sorry for me, or because I rocked your literary world.” It sounds a bit confrontational, and frankly I worry about a teacher’s ability to retroactively change grades.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I took a chance and didn’t get burned. But what was important is the I got just a bit ballsier. And as I’m searching for my own kind of literary identity, I think mas cojones is a pretty good place to rest your hat on.