Delivery Drivers: Facts vs. Fiction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eFA-an3TE8&feature=youtu.be

Here is the link to the final version of our documentary.

A Year in Reflection

The biggest struggle while doing this project was getting all of the group members on the same page initially. We had a very rough idea for what we wanted but I knew that many of those ideas would not come across well during the editing stage, since I was in charge of editing. Although it was a struggle, I do think the project as a whole turned out very nicely. The focus was clear and it was well organized and I was proud of my group for doing a good job. My least favorite part about the video was that it was not nearly as interesting as some of the other groups. It was difficult to make it exciting, especially since it was too difficult to get a "ride along" scene with a delivery driver due to their rules. My main role in the group was editor. Because I have done a few videos before, I knew going into it what we needed visually to make the video not look super awkward. Everyone else did a great job doing their part and it worked out fine. I wish I could have spoken up more at the beginning of the project and taken role as leader. I feel like I contributed a fair amount and the documentary as a whole went good.

If I would have seen all of the documentaries at the beginning of the semester, I would not have thought our groups would have been that well. I get distracted by the visual quality of the video and fail to focus on the content a lot of the time. I was able to realize when groups had trouble finding a focus in their documentary, when I wouldn't have been able to do that well at the beginning of the semester. I definitely enjoyed the layout of this class compared to my wrd class last semester. It was interesting and much more enjoyable reading things in different styles and watching videos occasionally. I feel like you did a much better job promoting conversation in class than my last semester teacher did which made the experience as a whole much better. I think the class as a whole was effective and more enjoyable. I definitely prefer this style to writing essays and reading novels. This class can be made better by possibly having one more formal speech to help students be more comfortable speaking in front of the class. I also enjoyed how you used time efficiently every day. When when you didn't have much more to say, you didn't feel the need to keep class going but just ended early. It made class easier to come to and not a drag. I cannot think of anything specific to change to improve this class.

Delivery Drivers: Facts vs. Fiction

Here is the link to get to our documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma7KDraG96Y

I really enjoyed watching this documentary. My favorite part about it was how clean it all was. The transitions were nice, the actual quality of the picture was fantastic, the sounds all blended well, and all of the shots were aesthetically pleasing. I thought the overall flow was nice and was easy to follow. I feel like there should have been a slightly heavier focus on the girl herself since the whole thing started and ended with her at the beauty pageant. Besides that small detail, I thought it was well organized. Another thing I really enjoyed about this documentary was the text. I loved how crisp it looked and the fact that it was there. I liked how it was sometimes on the slides in front of the shots, but to have emphasis was on a black slide. I think that added variety and impact in general.
If I were making a storyboard for this documentary, I would draw about eight different pictures. The first four I would draw the beauty pageant, a picture of the girl's family together (because of the many random shots taken around the house), and then two pictures with each of the parents because of their interviews. The next two I would draw Goose and Mindi's family because of the interviews they had, and then a picture of the explosion just to represent the change in focus. After that I would include pictures of the doctor's office, a picture of the general home of the girl, and then the final picture would be of the beauty pageant again. Overall, it was an enjoyable documentary.

Musician's Friend vs. Pearl Drums

The websites I visit the most are definitely Pearldrum.com and Musiciansfriend.com. Both of these websites have the purpose of selling products, specifically musical products. The main difference is that Musician's Friend is a general music website while Pearl Drums is specifically dedicated to percussion instruments. I think both websites do a really good job with organization and give the viewer a clear direction in a simplistic fashion. Although both sites have a quite different color scheme, they both are very appealing to the eye and not overwhelming. They both have a few main boxes on the home page to highlight their deals, special products, and important announcements. One thing I really like about this type of layout is that on the home page alone, I can find enough interesting things to look up to waste tons of time. It is impressive that both of these companies were able to lay out their websites in a way that is simplistic and yet packed full of information. Another thing both websites do well is that they present the tools to simplify your search and find the exact thing you are looking for quickly and easily. They both have a system to where you can slowly narrow down what you want in your product by picking options one step at a time.
Now when it comes to differences, I think both websites have advantages. I personally just like the color scheme of PearlDrum better with its mostly darker colors over the brighter colors of musiciansfriend.com. When it comes to Pathos and Ethos, I think Musician's Friend does better, while Pearldrum trumps in the Logos category. Musician's Friend does a great job at providing quality, reliable customer reviews on all their products. It is easy to see credibility of the products before purchasing them as well as possibly be swayed from reviewer's enthusiasm or dislike in the products. Pearldrum does not provide reviews for their products, but does do a great job providing extremely detailed descriptions with pictures. All of these things are very important, but I think Musician's Friend can be more trustworthy because of its personal customer reviews.

Death Penalty and Visual Rhetoric

It was very interesting learning that victims get to choose their last meal before receiving the death penalty. I think both sets of photography did a good job using visual rhetoric to their advantage, but I definitely liked a different aspects about both. I feel like when looking at "The Last Meal Project," it is easier to see right off the bat what the photographer is trying to portray because of his short statement at the beginning. He did a good job at establishing his position and intention of the project. I did not like the layout of the pictures themselves though. I think the photos of the criminals do not do as good of a job showing that these were just normal people. I think the picture used should have been a normal "everyday" picture to better show his point. The pictures make the criminals really seem like criminals and even though they did eat a normal meal before they died, it doesn't matter because they are still criminals. Those are just my thoughts on "The Last Meal Project."
For "No seconds," I feel like the biggest downfall was the introductory statement at the beginning. It was not nearly as descriptive and helpful as the other one, and did not give me a clear idea of what the point of the project was. I did, on the other hand, enjoy the layout of the pictures more. All of the food looked genuine and pleasing, and helped the reader understand the connection we all have to these criminals.

Speech Reflection

I feel like for this project, my main downfall was my preparation. I didn't create an exact script or practice a lot because I wanted to come across as natural as possible. I don't think a script was a necessary, but it would have been better to have practiced a few more times. I think the beginning was a little too choppy, but I smoothed it out as I went on. I also think I should have used a slightly higher pitch when speaking. It seemed slightly as though I was mumbling at some points (which I often do in normal conversation), but I think I could have avoided that with a clearer and higher tone. In regards to movement, I think I did pretty good being natural. I should work on not shifting my weight as much and not "pacing" quite as much. I think what I can do to fix that is to walk longer in a specific direction at a slower pace to avoid quick, repeated pace-like movement.
When it comes to information as a whole, I completely agree with the comment that I did not clarify enough what I wanted to do for the project. I think the main reason for this is I actually didn't think enough about what I specifically wanted the finished project to look like. I only had the general idea and was relying too much on having creative partners to bring ideas to the table. I think having this speech on video for reflection and future reference is a great idea. I will definitely use this tactic to my advantage for future speeches.

Questions I Hate Answering

As I have stated in class many times, my hobby is drumming and it is a pretty large part of my life. Although I do enjoy playing drumset in a "rock" band setting, my favorite type of music to play by far is snare drum in a drumline. Not many people know much about drumline and what playing on a line is like, but many people have seen the movie drumline. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been asked the questions: "Have you seen the movie Drumline?! So can you drum like Nick Cannon?!" My response: "Yes, I have seen that movie. And no, I cannot, nor will I ever, play the snare drum like Nick Cannon." The movie "Drumline" gives off a poor representation of what being in a drumline is actually like. Although this might sound arrogant, I think it agreeable with all real drummers that Nick Cannon is not a good drummer. Sure, he can do a lot of stick tricks and look confident in his playing, but in the things that actually matter--sound quality, rhythmic accuracy, and height control--he lacks talent. Unfortantely, this movie has skewed many people's ideas of what a talented snare drummer is, so whenever I perform for an uninformed crowd I feel the need to add stick tricks upon stick tricks upon stick tricks. Yes, stick tricks are cool, but they aren't what I tediously practice for hours every day and it is disappointing when hard work cannot be seen to the inexperienced eye.

Another hobby that I have is that I love watching anime. I have found out that a lot more people than I initially expected actually enjoy anime. But when I talk to one of the few people (usually guys) that don't watch it, I almost always get the question, "Oh, so you like anime porn?" I can't help but laugh when writing this, but it humors me that to people that don't watch anime the first thing that comes into their mind is all anime is porn. It's kind of hard to get around suggestive scenes in shows because basically every anime has some degree of inappropriateness in it. But I in no way enjoy these scenes, because frankly, that's kind of weird. So my response to these people: "Absolutely not. I do not like anime porn. "

"Ted Talk: The Surprising Science of Happiness" Response

In this Ted Talk, Dan Gilbert explains the idea of synthetic happiness and how it can sometimes be even more valid than "natural" happiness. Basically, we have the ability as humans to create happiness within ourselves in any situation, whether good or bad, with our mindset and attitude. I enjoyed listening to this speech and was able to easily remained focused during it because of Gilbert's effective speech tactics and organization.

I think Gilbert did a superb job in his speech with his tone, volume, and organization. In general, he had an interesting, non-monotone vocal projection that made listening fun and effortless. My favorite part about this is in the introduction. He asked the audience who they thought would be happier after a year: a person who won the lottery or a paralytic.  He displayed a graph that showed that lottery winners were approximately 3 times happier, causing the audience to chuckle slightly because of this obvious claim. But, then he switched the slide quickly to show that the ACTUAL data says that the paralytics are slightly happier on average. The crowd grew silent quickly because it was as if he had punched them in the face with this shocking statistic and made their attention level skyrocket. I think using a quick curveball in a presentation such as this is an affective way to quickly catch the audience's attention in a unique, non-cliché way. The other thing that I thought was affective in this was his use of many examples supported by graphs and pictures. Visual representations of what you are saying that are simple and easy to remember can be beneficial, but I also think they can be slightly distracting. A few of the graphs he used were slightly confusing to me, which required much of my focus, resulting in distraction from the main point. Overall, I think he did a fairly good job using the visuals, but I would have liked to see the graphs laid out in a more comprehensive way. Lastly, I think Gilbert had a great conclusion. He encapsulated the main idea of his entire speech into a few short sentences that make it easy for a listener to walk away remembering the most important ideas, rather than insignificant details. I will be using many of these techniques in my upcoming speech to maximize my chance of success.

Detroit vs. Everybody Response

Normally, reading something as descriptive as this would bore me immensely, but this article actually kept my attention very well. Part of that might have been because of the frequent pictures every few lines, but I think it is also because of good writing that gave a good look into a place I've never been to or thought much about. The first example Rembert gave about the Heidelberg Project is one of the odder things I've heard about a city. I don't think I'd particularly enjoy going to the area and seeing the different buildings of art, but I respect it and think it is a pretty neat idea.
The thing I liked reading about the most was the bizarre, near-empty Belle Isle Park. While most people would find it unappealing to go to a park that is near abandoned, I find the idea quite interesting. I would not like to go to this place alone, but with a few friends, I think it would be a place I would enjoy spending my weekends at.
I enjoyed the content of this article because of the idea of looking past the bad to see the good. So often in life we are consumed with people's and things' negatives characteristics over their positive ones. Even if someone does ten good things and one bad thing, we will always be quick to remember that one bad thing and dwell on it and base our opinion of that person off of it. This article does point out the negative things of Detroit right off the bat, but I think he does a good job of counterbalancing those with unique, positive things that the city brings. Now, is it a city I would like to visit one day? Not particularly, but, I do have a respect for it and I understand why people might love it. Every city, and person, has a unique thing to contribute to life. I think we need to stop acting like it is our job to judge who and what is the best and just enjoy the simple pleasures of the variety of life.

"My Bodies of the Year" Response

I feel like Morris does not start or end this article in a very relevant way. In the actual article, he talks a lot about how bodies are highly praised in today's world, but he did not really do a good job at connecting these many points to his main idea that today is more about the "little things." I did think, however, that he did a great job with supplying multiple examples of how this year has not been the year for "beautiful" bodies. Although, there is one huge example from 2013 I can think up the top of my head that stands against his claim: Miley Cyrus. She tried to be sexy and whatnot in "Wrecking Ball," but I don't think many people saw it as that. They just saw it as another nice Disney Channel Star going off the deep end.
Even though I do not think Morris's intro did a good job at relating to the idea that today is more about the "little things," I think the story about his mother did a great job at easing into his thoughts about how bodies are seen. He also did a successful job of reminding us that the media isn't always right and life is more than just about sexiness. I personally get tired of constantly seeing hotness and sexiness flaunted everywhere. Personally, I like it when girls are more cute than hot and it gets tiresome when I feel like every girl is aiming to be hot. It's just not as attractive to me. People are so consumed these days with finding a partner who is just hot as can be and personality, beliefs, and other things don't matter, and I think that's partially media's fault. Once you get old and your spouse gets unattractive... then what? I don't like the role that media plays in our society now. Everyone keeps up to date with all these famous people's lives and marriages and what not, and not that there is anything wrong with that, I just don't understand the point. I want to enjoy my own life and be successful in what I do, and I don't need to feel the need to follow all these celebrities who are indulging in whatever they want and coming out unhappy in the end. Basically, I just think that looks and hotness are much too overvalued in today's society. There is definitely more to life, such as my faith in God, that I would rather consume my time with than worry about what I look like on the outside. The things of this earth will pass away sooner than we know it, and I'd rather focus my time and energy on the things that will matter after it is all said and done.