Blog Post 2

UCONN star Maya Moore turns down MN Lynx will instead sign with Hartford school district

Celebrated womens college basketball player Maya Moore has made her decision. She has turned down a life of economy class airplanes and a leased Prius to be a substitute teacher. Her decision came as a suprise to some as she is already one of the greatest womens basketball players to play the game. According to her mother money may have factored into the equation, "Maya can make the same amount and there is less of a chance she suffers debilitating injuries." Moore said on Tuesday, "This has always been my dream to babysit a different class everyday and I'm so excited that I was given the oppurtunity." Sources have said that even up until she signed with HSD she was struggling with turning down lifelong dreams. Maya had always wanted to meet an actual NBA player, but now that dream will go unrealized. Moore said through a statement, "...when I was drafted by the Lynx I was excited about the chance to meet pros like Kevin Love, but at the end of the day it just wasn't worth it to play in the WNBA." When asked to comment on the decision Mens coach Jim Calhoun said, "They're still letting girls play?" Geno Auriemma, Maya's coach and mentor, had this to say to an ESPN reporter: "She was a great player and from what I hear an okay teacher. At least as a teacher somebody might be interested in what she's doing." Hopefully her career will pan out and she will a healthy average life. Sometimes thats the best a women's sports star can do.

Blog post 1

"That was some adventure, huh?" said the Rattlesnake to the One-eyed baby. The small cyclops started to cry. Having just one eye there were only half the tears of a normal infant,which was good because their boat had begun to capsize. The talking Rattlesnake was right in saying that they had just had an adventure. They had been apart of a traveling freak show in the Pacific Northwest. At a small truck stop in Tacoma, Washington their cages had fallen off the back of the freak show van. Rattlesnake had wiggled through the bars of its cage and freed the baby. He was planning on eating the child, but could not bring himself to eat such a vile freak. So Rattlesnake had begun carrying him around by the neck with his mouth. He slithered down the road with the hopes of finding shelter for the night. However, a family saw a baby crying on the side of the road and pulled over. Being devoted to the Church of Latter Day Saints the father, Harold, saw two living things that could be converted. He began to preach from the book of Mormon. The baby began to cry. At the end of his long sermon Harold demanded that both baby and Rattlesnake come live as his guests in Salt Lake City. Rattlesnake tried to bargain with Harold, but he would have none of it. He threw them both in a wooden box.The baby continued crying all the way to Salt Lake City. Rattlesnake decided that he would take a short nap and then devise a plan. 25 minutes later he awoke starving. Forgetting completely where he was and of his predicament he started to gnaw at the side of the box. He gnawed and gnawed and freed himself through a small hole. Biting the first piece of food he laid eyes on he sank his teeth in to Harold's four year old daughter Karen. He made short work of Karen devouring her whole in a matter of moments. Harold was not amused and while he cried and cried he stated his intentions to send them to the local zoo. They were caged and put on view for the paying public. After three days of sitting in a cage and watching crowds go by neither had many hopes for the future. Little did they know that just 100 yards away in the Monkey house trouble was brewing. The chimpanzees, with the help of the  orangutans, had begun implementing an escape plan that was simply ingenious. The details would be to difficult to relay in a 400 word blog, but many successful human jailbreaks have not had half the organization of this attempt. At any rate, at precisely 11:45 at night the monkeys had escaped and begun freeing the rest of the zoo's animals. As planned, yet previously unbeknownst to them, One-eyed baby and talking amphibian found themselves on the dusty sidewalk outside the zoo. Still carrying the baby, but at this point unsure why, Rattlesnake slithered downhill. Then he saw something and knew where he and his only friend were headed to. At the bottom of the hill he spied the frothing, blue Great Salt Lake. And sitting on its bank was a small rusty rowboat. They boarded the rowboat and the serpent taught One-eyed baby how to row. They rowed and rowed for hours. Hours turned in to days. Days turned in to weeks. Weeks turned in to years. They still row on and on, escaping their lives as captives.

Blog Post 10

This wasn't my favorite reading and I thought even though it was short it was kind of dull. I think that the theme of some people don't fit in and the establishment works to make everyone the same is overused. Her take on the way that people react to it is a little different. I wasn't sure if she actually lives in a country that is different than the one she was born in. The reason I think it might be meant to take literally is because her voice sounds different so maybe she has an accent from somewhere else. The article did make me think about how fitting in is difficult for some people and that kindness should be shown to everyone.

Our Documentary is looking pretty good. We were a little behind on the editing and our footage didn't seem as good as some other groups. But, I think that this week we've realized that our interviews are really strong and our topic is a good one. We currently have a pretty good couple of minutes, but we need to iron out audio and transitions andn make some B-roll changes, but I think by Monday we'll have a really good documentary.

Blog Post 9

We got our most important interview done and feel like we have enough interview footage for our documentary. We could use some more B-roll, but have decided to start editing down and decide what extra footage we need.   All of us are feeling really good about reaching the deadlines and being ready to do our best. Hopefully we will be able to complete it well. Our biggest obstacles now will be getting in to edit and using the software correctly. I think that we wish that we had gotten our filming done early but sill have enough time.

The article is really provoking because a lot of the time we forget that a lot of the people in the world don't enjoy the freedoms that we do. To not be able to speak your mind and have one source of media and only one way that you are allowed to think would be terrible. It makes one appreciate the privileged life that we enjoy. I think that it is really sad that people in a country's government could show such little care for their citizens.

New Blog Post

Our group has made some really good progress in the last week. We got some really good interview footage form Alex and Jason and I think that right now we could make an acceptable 3 minute documentary. We are looking to take it to the next level and are setting up an interview with Adrienne and thinking about how we want our documentary to flow. One thing we need to work on is getting better B-roll because what we have in that category as of now isn't very good.

This reading was really powerful and well-written. I liked the way that King started with themes that are traditionally associated with Christmas and applied them to the situation in Chicago. The over-arching message that nonviolence triumphs in all venues is one that would be foreign to the gang-members living in the Chicago slums. King gives the boys the gift of this outlook on life and teaching new ways to get what they want without hurting others. Then they in turn apply what they have learned and spread this gift to the whole city of Chicago. They were able to bring about change and learn how to continue to deal with socially issues peacefully.

Blog Post 4

1. Our documentary is really starting to pick up speed. We finally decided on a topic that we are sticking to and the whole group is really excited about that. We are seeing a direction for our idea and are ready to begin doing research and filming for our trailer. We need to do a better job of managing time and collaborating as a team, but I think that we are starting to do a better job on this. Hopefully our late start won't hurt us too much and we will be able to make the best documentary that we are capable of.

2. I though that the article was very helpful to us as budding documentary makers. I don't have much experience formally interviewing people and the tips and rules in this article will be in the back of my head when I set up interviews with subjects. I think that the article echoed much of what our speakers have said about how to get good interview footage, but its nice to have it all written down. The story about Dr. Spock was really interesting and something that I don't think anyone would've thought would be a problem in advance of reading the article. The idea of trying different things to get the subject in the right mindset is one that my group will have to try and use.

Blog Post 2

1. This week my group has been struggling to decide on a topic for our documentary. We have come up with a lot of ideas but none that all three of us have been able to agree on. We have set Tuesday as the day when we have to decide and I think that this is a needed and attainable goal. I think that we could all be a little bit more accepting of others ideas, and I think we will as we get closer to our deadline.

2. I thought that this was a really interesting take on documentary films. Even only talking about this year he was able to come up with so many documentary and documentary-like films and that really shows just how popular the genre is. He argues that audiences want to believe that what their seeing is real, but often know that the director has taken some liberties. I thought it was interesting when the author went in to the parts of style that make a movie feel like a documentary, like jolty camerawork. I could relate to the article because one of my favorite shows, The Office, plays on documentary styling. I thought that it was a really good question: What is actually a documentary?

Blog Post 6

I am really pleased with the way our PSA has come together in the last week. We really worked hard and got some great footage. Hopefully with some editing we will be able to make our message really strong and I think that people will be affected by it. Some of the other groups are doing more concepts and abstract ideas. Our PSA has a clear storyline and I think that this will draw the viewer in and help them to relate to the idea. Also the idea of controlling one's negative emotion is something that most of our peers will relate to. Hopefully editing will go very smoothly and we haven't forgotten anything and our PSA will be strong and moving.

Blog Post 6

I am really pleased with the way our PSA has come together in the last week. We really worked hard and got some great footage. Hopefully with some editing we will be able to make our message really strong and I think that people will be affected by it. Some of the other groups are doing more concepts and abstract ideas. Our PSA has a clear storyline and I think that this will draw the viewer in and help them to relate to the idea. Also the idea of controlling one's negative emotion is something that most of our peers will relate to. Hopefully editing will go very smoothly and we haven't forgotten anything and our PSA will be strong and moving.

Blog Post 4

To be completely honest we have not even begun our video production. We are planning to start to film next week. We will need at least two days to film and maybe up to four. Then we will need at least one day to edit our film. We are gelling well within our group and staying very committed to our idea. No one has given up or went severely against the group yet. One obstacle is that we are having trouble planning ahead. We have been procrastinating a little bit so far, but hopefully we can move away from this trend. We had hoped to film without snow, but we were all very surprised that winter weather came so quickly. This however does not effect any portion of our story it just might be a little harder to film outside now. I think that we have our PSA production fully under control at this point.

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Falling Polar Bears

I think that our group will make a very good and effective PSA. Our message is that the action needed to prevent anger from overtaking your judgement is easy and hopefully this will inspire our peers to take action. I think that it will. It is pretty blatant in the action that we are asking people to take. This action is to calm down when you feel yourself getting angry. Our audio mostly serves to reinforce the message conveyed by our visuals. The visuals work to tell a story that would make sense even with no audio. We are working on how to make our PSA flow really seamlessly. I think that our PSA will be very effective because it will be clear and make sense to our peers. It will be simple, but interesting and I think it will be able to  convince our peers to take action.

Blog Post 3

To this point I think that the most difficult part of the PSA has been putting our ideas down in to pictures and words. We are pretty creative and have come up with good ideas and concepts. However we seem to be procrastinators when it comes to putting our ideas down on paper. This was especially true in our storyboard. I think that we procrastinate because none of us are especially good writers or artists so we tend to shy away from these things. We did end up getting the storyboard done and I think that we did a good job, but we really had trouble summing up our ideas and making them come to live on paper. We are much more comfortable talking about our ideas than trying to sum them up without our voices. Hopefully this will not be a problem in the future and I think that we will still do a great job on the PSA.

Blog Post 2

I was a little disappointed with the way our pitch went. I felt that we had a good topic and a unique idea of how to portray it. We had thought out our topic and knew exactly what we would need and how to make each scene happen. I thought that we showed that we were well prepared for our pitch with a lot of information pertaining to  our PSA. However when our preliminary storyboard was "pitched" it was done in a way that made our PSA seem like a joke. It made it seem like we threw everything together at the last minute, which was not the case at all. I think that everyone in the room was thinking that here is a group that just doesn't care and they are hoping to cruise through VOICES. We in the group were disappointed in the member of our group who gave the class this impression and we told him that. We all take responsibility for what happened though. We are not in full agreement with the feedback that we got, especially the suggestions that we should alter our whole PSA topic and layout. However, we will be changing our PSA and pretty much starting from scratch because we realize that now no one will see our old ideas as anything less than a joke.

Blog Post 1

Public Service Announcements are very important to American society because they push social agendas as opposed to products. We are forced to confront and learn about issues in our communities that we are able to change and affect. Successful PSA campaigns have the power to change how a group of people thinks about a certain issue and even affect their actions. Our group decided to do a topic that none of us had seen a PSA on before, but we all had seen as a problem in the real world. We  had noticed that many of our peers were becoming stressed and frustrated as senior year went in to full swing. Some were becoming stressed to the point of anger and had taken this anger out on their own friends. We are hoping that our PSA can persuade our peers to take a second and relax before they hurt the people that care for them. To do this we would like to portray  some of the sources of stress in teenagers, and then show ways that this stress is alleviated in negative ways that hurt others.

Blog Post #2

I think that the McDonald's commercials are very affective. Most people think that fast food is all the same, low quality and cheap. McDonalds has commercials with people of all races and backgrounds, but dressed well and smiling. It makes the restaurant seem classy and like its a step up from Burger King and the rest of the fast food places. They also make the food seem really tasty and after seeing those commercials sometimes I get hungry for McDonalds. I think that commercials have a big affect on what you want/think you need and what you eventually buy.

1st Blog

In the past two MTN presentations I learned a lot about all the work and thoughts that go in to creating and producing a piece of video. I learned how we can see and interpret as well as critique various aspects of media communications. I learned about the importance of media literacy. We receive so much of our information through media so it is vital for us to be able to interpret it. The clip that I am planning on using is an ESPN clip of a skit including some prominent vikings players. Its really funny and I think it will be cool to analyze the techniques used in a comedic piece