End of Year Reflection :(

My biggest struggle during this project was the conflicting times and schedules that everyone had, including the members of the paintball club. At times getting my group members on the same schedule was difficult. The stress of editing and being afraid that the project would not turn out well, was also a struggle that I faced. The final project is the aspect of the project that makes me most proud. I believe the documentary was well put together in the end and turned out amazing. I would have changed the group we focused on. Although the paintball team was well, they were rather unreliable in the beginning and slow to communicate, which put a huge halt on our project. I along with Brandy were personally responsible for editing the first 2:45 of the documentary. Additionally, I was in constant contact with the Paintball team, I along with Susan and Brandy wrote the interview questions. Unfortunately, our group got off to a very bad start. Some people in the group proved unreliable until the end. However, there was miscommunication throughout the process. I do feel as if I contributed a fair amount to the group project.

I believe this course was very successful in sharpening my critical thinking skills. I absolutely loved learning about different communication skills and their functions. There is no way I would have preferred writing 4 essays to the work we did throughout the semester. I believe this course was great in allowing me to step out of my comfort zone, I would not have wanted to learn second semester WRD any other way. I really enjoyed completing the blog post the absolute most and the readings we had to do, Detroit vs. Everybody was my favorite. The interaction regarding the last supper was the most intriguing, I have actually made a few of my friends go through the interaction. I believe making the groups smaller will be helpful for future classes. Smaller groups allows for the work to be distributed and completed fairly amongst the group members. If I could change one thing I would change how discussions are after doing a reading and blog post. I noticed there wasn't much participation, maybe a round table would be more effective or forced replies. But other than that I am very sad that the class has come to an end.

Paintball Documentary!

Paintball Documentary

Here's the correct link to our paintball documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCO19HJCU5w

Annotated Interview Schedule (Paintball Group)

Spencer Carter’s interview was conducted on Thursday, April 3rd at 4pm. Spencer Carter is one of the presidents of the paintball club. From his interview we sought to get his experiences playing paintball with the team and without, why and how he became interested in joining the team.

Travis Smith is the former president of the Paintball Club, who agreed early on to let us interview him. We will be interviewing him on Sunday April 6, at approximately 2 pm. From his interview we will hope to obtain B Roll footage and what his paintball experiences were like being the president and just being on the team.

Christian Swartz’s interview will be held on Sunday at 2 pm as well. From this interview we hope to find out from his perspective the team dynamics and his funny and/or embarrassing moments playing paintball for UK.

Kyle Leyshon’s interview will be held on Sunday as well. From this interview we will hope to view his perspective on whether or not he feels that paintball encourages violence or is comparable to it in any way.

Born Into Coal

The documentary Born Into Coal, I found to be rather pointless. I do understand that somewhere in the world and to many people coal is very important, however I was rather unmoved by the documentary. I am, though very sorry regarding the deaths of the 20+ miners who lost their lives at Massey, that was a very unfortunate and tragic event. I did grasp the importance of the coal industry and pageant to West Virginia and the families therein, from the documentary.

The documentary did a wonderful job of incorporating B Roll into the film, especially in the beginning. In the beginning you could hear the voices of contestants and them going through their introductions. Throughout the entire documentary it seems that it were solely interview based, however with the great B Roll imaging I missed this occurrence during my first viewing. The creator also effectively implemented close up shots and long shots. Showing the miners from afar and very dirty shows how realistic the job is. Also, how the miner comes home from work and is able to sit right down to eat without washing up, shows how reliant the family is upon the coal industry. He uses video footage of long shots transitioning to close ups almost as still images.

If we were to see this documentary in storyboard form we would first begin with the pageant then transition to the different families and the average persons view of the miners. The storyboard would end with a few images of juxtaposed text and videos and the young lady winning the pageant.

Jays On My Feet

I am almost ashamed to admit that the two websites I visit frequently, almost 5 or more times a day are Footlocker.com and Finishline.com. Both of these websites serve similar purposes to advertise and sell footwear, clothing, and accessories of the athletic persuasion. I visit these sites with the intent of purchasing shoes or just to keep myself updated with the new or nearby release dates. Foot Locker advertises more for the basketball clothing and shoes, whereas Finish Line advertises more for runners. When you visit these sites they are similarly structured. At the top you will find the log-in information, search box, the drop down menus per shoe style, the current shoe mini jumbo-tron, beneath that the current grid-like structure of bestsellers, and other important but non-essential information. These websites have an audience of whomever may afford the footwear and clothing being advertised. The secondary audience in today’s times are ‘sneaker heads’ or ‘hype beast’ who purchase the shoes for style, which are people of all ages with a card number. Another targeted audience are people who are too lazy or maybe unfortunate to be able to travel to the stores bright and early on a Thursday-Saturday morning to purchase shoes. Categorically I fall into the lazy section, I don't mind the extra $7.99 of shipping.

The ethos comes into play visually on both websites and the messages the advertisements play while one is shopping. Visually Foot Locker’s website is black and a dark grey, this serves the purpose of the buyer being able to focus on the shoes being advertised on the mini jumbo-tron and beneath it on the website. The contrast forces the buyer to pay more attention to the forefront of the site - the shoes - rather than the backdrop. The wording on the site is white, which also creates a stronger contrast because it draws the buyers eyes to the different sections and titles so that one is able to easily navigate the site and purchase the shoes and leave the website. This is probably done because the Foot Locker website gets extremely crowded at specific times in the week and at certain time frame within those days. Due to the overcrowding of the website during these times one is subject to being dismissed from the website for 30 seconds to an hour. So, the site being easily manageable is a plus for the consumer. Finish Line visually is blue and white the sides possess advertisements to draw the customers attention elsewhere and to convince them to purchase or consider more than one shoe. It is a greatly effective strategy with someone like me, who loves gym shoes, however it is ineffective when the website also experiences the same overcrowding as does the Foot Locker website, during similar times. The most effective website rhetorically would be Foot Locker, it gears it’s customer to one thing and helps them to put their focus in that one place. Even though there is a lack of additional advertising once you have decided to select a shoe, because of the notorious name Foot Locker holds, it is almost unnecessary.

No Seconds vs The Last Meal Project

I found both of the two presentations to be visually compelling and intriguing. In my opinion there is no comparing the two, where one website falls short another website picks up the slack. The goal of ‘No Seconds’ presentation was almost to mock the American tradition of offering the most notorious group of people in society a last meal before execution. Throughout the project the photographer provides us with detailed information regarding the alleged crimes committed. Also, the photographs are more visually appealing than the ones found in ‘The Last Meal Project‘. Additionally, the photographer includes the age of the person, which is not available in the information provided by ‘The Last Meal Project’. The images and text provided seems to provide an equal focus of the actual person and the food in which they requested. In ‘No Seconds’ the abundance of information in the accuracy of the alleged crime committed helps the audience to assume the photographers point ‘why do they deserve a last meal?’ The photo that speaks the most volume is the Angel Nieves Diaz, the inmate who requested no last meal. This photo was depicted by a an empty plate, place settings, and a empty cup. This image was the most important because it symbolizes one of two things about the person: he was feeling guilty and felt he did not deserve a last meal before his execution, or he was in a hurry to complete the process.

In ‘The Last Meal Project’ the goal of this presentation is more informational and as stated in the first slide “to question how is society really served by the death penalty?“. In this presentation there is a more accurate description of the food provided, numerically, although the meals aren’t in a visually appealing design. This leaves the audience with a ‘cut and dry’ image of what is taking place, there is a sense of honesty with no sugar coating taking place. This photographer also included a photo of the person on death row behind the images of the food requested. This speaks the most volume to letting the audience determine what could have potentially been the cause or reasoning for them desiring the meal in which they did. Additionally the presentation includes information regarding the costs of being on death row and being executed, and the process of what lethal injections consists of. Also this presentation the includes the date and time in which the inmate was executed.

Both photographers used the font ‘Courier New’ to present the information on each inmate. Unfortunately this seems to be the one font all persons use in describing the death penalty, however, this may derive from this being the original font provided on typewriters. In both presentations I was moved by the information provided but more affected by ‘The Last Meal Project’ because it included the faces of the inmate.