Final Reflection - Blog #8

English has never been my favorite subject, so coming into this class I was dreading it.  However, the class wasn't as bad as I had expected.  The variety of the assignments made it much more interesting, while challenging me just enough to wear it wasn't boring.  One of the biggest challenges that I faced while taking this class, was speaking in front of people.  I've always struggled with getting in front of people, and doing it for a grade was even more stressful.  With this struggle I had to practice speaking by myself, just to overcome some of my nerves.  Something that surprised me was how much more comfortable that I was during the second speech.  I didn't recieve as good of a grade as the first speech, but a positive that I took away from that was that I wasn't as nervous.  I still wasn't completely nerve free, but I saw improvement which was a real surprise to me, considering when I heard we had to conduct speeches in class I freaked out.  Although I saw improvement in my speaking skills, I still did much better on the writing assignments.  I have always been a better writer than speaker, and those assignments have been the ones that I found the most success in. This class as a whole has been not only taught about how to use certain programs such as Adobe Premiere, and also taught me how to create my own blog which I had no experience with prior to taking the class.  The class also taught me that I won't be able to procrastinate as much in college as I did in high school, and served as a wake-up call to what is to come in the upcoming years.

Documentary Storyboard

3136 words

Brett Thompson         

Jennifer Hudgens

Word 110

Section 055

November 17, 2015

Documentary Storyboard

          When my documentary begins, I want the opening credits to begin giving credit to the editor, which is me, and the people who helped with interviews and voice overs.  During this opening credits scene, I would like to play the song ABC by Jackson 5 because it gives an upbeat tone to the documentary that I want to help draw the audience in.  Also the lyrics help go with the documentary.  The point of the documentary is to inform and persuade the students about increasing college tuition and how to fix it, and I want some of the lyrics such as, “You went to school to learn girl, what you never never knew before” (Jackson 5), to go along with this idea that they’re watching the documentary to learn a little more about something that they might not be very familiar with, or aware of.  More lyrics that contribute to the purpose of the documentary are “Sit yourself down, take a seat; all you gotta do is repeat after me” (Jackson 5).  I want these lyrics to tell the audience to sit back and watch, and give the impression that the argument I intend to make will persuade them to agree with me.  Along with the song I intend to play a video of students walking in the background.  I want this short clip to really emphasize that the main focus of my argument is going to be geared towards helping out college students.  I want the opening credits to not only give credit to those who helped make the documentary, but also grab the audience’s attention.

            After the opening credits end, the next scene begins with a picture of Nelson Mandela and with one of his quotes about education and how important it is (TheEducationTrends). 

I want to use this visual picture of Nelson Mandela, who was arguably one of the most impactful people ever, to help emphasize how important education is.  I think that emphasizing education’s importance at the beginning will ultimately help my argument, because it will show people why they should care  about the cost of an education.  Along with the picture, a voice over begins where I provide a narrative of the picture and lead in to my thesis statement.  My voice over will start off by saying, “Nelson Mandela once said, ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’, but unfortunately education is becoming increasingly more difficult to obtain.”  After this first sentence the picture will then fade into a short video clip of a resident dorm building on the University of Kentucky’s campus.

  I am wanting to go for a continuing theme, to be focused on the students, and I think this short video really helps with that, showing where the students live.  This will also have a voice over that I want to introduce the purpose of the documentary which will continue from the previous voice over, saying, “The cost of tuition is making it harder on students to pay for college, and the prices of college continues to increase.”  I want to then fade into a picture of a college lecture classroom filled with students.  I want this to provide an educational tone, to lead into information and evidence that will teach the audience more about increasing tuition rates.  This picture will have text written on it saying “4% increase per year over last 20 years” (Yeagle).  There will also be a voice over to restate the information on the picture, because I want to provide the evidence visually and auditory.  Not everybody learns the same way so I think that this will help inform a larger range of audiences.  The voice over will say “College tuition has risen an average of %4 per year over the last 20 years” (Yeagle).  I want to then have a new set of text to show up on the same picture, giving more information.  The text will say, “Costs have quadrupled in 35 years” (Campos).  The voice over will continue from the last sentence saying, “The average tuition costs have quadrupled in 35 years averaging to $9,139 in 2014 (Campos).”  After this part of the voice over ends, a picture of money will fade in (SweetDreams).

 I want this picture to appeal to the audience, sparking an interest in the upcoming facts because everyone cares about money.  I want to put in a voice over stating, “The total student debt has recently accumulated to over one trillion dollars (Yeagle).”  I want to also insert text over the picture saying, “$1,000,000,000,000”.  The reason I wanted to write out the whole number, instead of just writing the word, is because I think the amount of zeros on the number will really emphasize how much money one trillion dollars is. 

            For the next scene I want to fade into a video of a news broadcaster, from PressTv, explaining the struggles that college students are facing with the high tuition costs.  I think that this video will help provide some visual evidence to my argument.  The woman broadcaster looks very professional, and she is not only arguing the same points I am, but also adding points to my argument.  Some of the things she brings up that are helpful to my argument are “an increasing amount of colleges are charging more than what Americans

  earn every year.” She also gives some statistical backing of this argument stating that “they are charging more than $50,000 per year, while the National average wage is $42,000.”  I think that this is a good way to provide evidence because the audience is hearing the information from a different voice than my own.  After the broadcaster is done speaking the video transitions to an interview with a student that they conducted about how paying for college has affected their academic success, and also their mental wellness.  Some of the things that the student says are, “it’s taxing” and “when I come home from work I don’t really want to do my school work, but I’m here as a student” (PressTv).  This interview will hopefully provide sympathy for the student, adding to the audience’s interest in the issue.  Having the audience hear a testimony from a student also help to further back up my argument, and aid in the focus on the effects of this issue on students.  The video will then fade out, leading into my next scene.

            This scene will begin with a quick voice over, explaining how the school from the video is not the only one with students struggling to pay for school.  The voice over will say, “This student’s testimony is not unique.  Many students are feeling the financial pressures of the high tuition rates, and I was able to interview a student asking him how the expenses of college have affected him.”  I chose to insert this quick intro to help the flow of the documentary, and emphasize the ultimate goal of conducting the interview which is to reveal how these high costs influence the lives of students.  While this voice over is playing I intend to have a picture of students studying in a group for an exam.  Again I want the documentary to focus on helping students, and hopefully by seeing students repeatedly, the audience will start to grow more interested in the issue.  The more they see the students the more they will care about their well-being.  This will then lead into a picture of the student

 being interviewed,  where he is sitting at his desk studying.  I chose to use this picture because the audience will see him as a normal college student; working hard, and trying his best to get an education, which will make what he has to say more reliable.  During this I will play a voice over of parts of the interview which help my argument.  I chose to do a voice over instead of a video because I want the audience to infer that they are listening to an unedited version of the interview, when actually it will be edited to best support my argument. 

            After the interview is over, a chart will pop up showing statistics from a survey I conducted.  The survey consisted of five questions, and each question will have a bar graph showing the answers given, and each picture of the graph will fade into the next question’s graph, and I will narrate this survey with another voice over.  The voice over will start by saying, “I not only interviewed a student on the impact of the cost of college, but I also had random students participate in a survey answering questions about their college debt and how they feel about it.”  This part of the voice over provides a transition from the previous scene and allows the audience to know what they are going to be looking at.  The voice over will continue with the first question by explaining, “the first question the students had to answer was if they had to take out loans to pay for college.  Almost 65% of the students said they did have to go in debt to receive their education.  This is 65% of students who will graduate owing money, and they aren’t even promised a job.  The next question I asked was if the student had to get a job to pay for their schooling.  One in four students said they were working while also trying to keep up with their school work because otherwise they couldn’t afford it.  I also asked about their extra expenses on top of tuition such as books.  Again one and four students said they had to spend over $400 on just books for their classes.  This is on top of the thousands of dollars they are already spending on the classes.  Nearing the end of the survey I asked the students if they worried about their financial debt after graduating, and almost two thirds of the students answered yes, they were worried.  My final question to them is if they would do something, if they could, to lower tuition costs.  %90 of the students answered yes.”  I chose to use this survey because it just strengthens the argument that many students are having trouble paying for college and the graphs help the audience to see, visually, the data that was gathered.  This transitions into what my next scene will talk about which is why college tuition rates are rising.

            Following the final statement of the voice-over about the survey, the video of students walking to class that played during the opening credits scene will pop up again.  This video continues to show the audience that the well-being of the students is the main focus of this argument.  A voice over will play over the video transitioning from the previous scene, while also introducing the next scene.  The voice over will say, “the data from the last question of the survey shows that students are wanting to fix this problem, but the question is how?  To find out how we must explore why the cost of college is so high and continues to grow.”  I chose to put this short insert into the documentary because it will draw the audience in, causing them to keep watching so they can find out more about why tuition costs have risen so high.  While this voice over is playing, the video of students will have text pop up on it saying, “WHY?”, to again use visual and auditory methods to further engage the audience in the argument I am trying to make.  The video will fade into a picture of students studying in the library.  I chose to use this picture here because the tone of a library setting seems to be determined and focused especially with students, and I want to convey that tone with the information I am about to give about tuition costs.  I want to show the audience that I am focused to get to the bottom of the question asked in the previous scene.  As soon as the picture shows up, another voice over will play, saying, “one of the common reasons people believe that college tuition has gone up so much is because of inflation.  Inflation is what causes everything else to go up such as clothing, food, and transportation to go up so it’s easy to say a college education is no different.  Inflation is a factor in this problem, but only a small one.”  After this, a picture of an SRT Viper will show up, hopefully catching the audience off-guard and catching their attention.  Along with this picture, the voice-over will continue explaining, “If the cost of a car had risen as fast as the cost of college over the past 30 years, the average price of a car would be $80,000, which is the same price as this SRT Viper (Campos).”  I want the picture of the car to put in perspective the kind of car someone could get with that amount of money, and for them to realize that would be the price of an average car.  This not only emphasizes how fast the college cost is increasing, but also introduces the idea that it is not consistent with the increase in price of other things.  To build on this idea, the picture of the Viper will change into a graph of inflation rates of college tuition compared to other common things that people spend their money on.  I chose this graph because the audience can actually see the trend in all of these prices due to inflation compared to the college tuition price.   On top of

 this visual aid, a voice over will play over it analyzing the graph, saying, “Here’s a graph showing the increase in tuition compared the increases in price of other common things such as clothing apparel, transportation, and food (Schoen).  As you can see the slope of college tuition is noticeably higher compared to everything else.  This proves that inflation must not be the only factor to this increasing problem.”  I intend this analyzation to ask yet another question in the audience’s minds which is, ‘What else could be causing this increase?’.  I want these questions to spark the audience’s minds, creating a genuine interest in the answer to help keep them engaged in the documentary. 

            The next scene will start with a picture of a professor, teaching students, in a lecture hall.  I chose this picture to try to set the tone of the next few scenes to be informational.  I intend to give some facts about what I am talking about so I think setting this tone with the picture will help with that.  Along with this picture I will provide a voice over continuing from the last scene, saying, “Another factor for this rapid increase in tuition is that state support for universities is slowly deteriorating.  Over the past 20 years, state support for college universities has dropped an average of $2,000 per year, while college tuition has raised an average of $3,500 per year (Yeagle).  This correlation proves that this lack of funding is a key factor in this increase, but notice that the tuition is still rising higher than the state funding is decreasing.  This means there may still be more causes to this growing problem.”  While the voice-over is playing, text will show up on the picture saying, “State support has dropped $2,000 per year, and college tuition has risen $3,500 per year.”  This again will provide visual information to go along with the auditory information given by the voice-over.  This will lead into the last part of answering this question of ‘why’, a picture of the Administration building at the University of Kentucky will fade into view.  The building gives off a peaceful tone, with trees in front of it, and its beautiful architecture, which will hopefully represent how the Administration is okay with students continuing to be burdened with student loans while their salaries rise to upwards of six figures.  This will be added onto in a voice over that will continue from the last part of the scene, further explaining, “One final cause of this increasing problem lies with the Administration at college universities.  The amount of administration positions at college universities grew by %60 from 1993 to 2009 (Campos).  A college professor, after doing some research, discovered that his university saw only a %3.5 increase in the amount of faculty from 1975-2008, compared to a %221 increase in the amount of administrators (Campos).  The focus of the University should be towards teaching students, and the administrators don’t teach.”  I want this voice over to start to make the audience mad about this, and begin to motivate them to do something, which leads into my conclusion. 

           

          For the last scene it will fade into a picture of a riot on a college campus.  The picture is of students coming together to protest something they feel very strongly about.  I chose this picture because it gives a rebellious tone that calls for people to come together.  On the picture is going to be text, saying, “The only way we can fix this issue, is to realize the problem, and work together to fix it.” After this text is up for a minute to give the audience enough time to read it, then the text will fade into a new set of text saying, “We must write to head of universities and state congressman.”  Again the text will fade into new text saying, “Only one person isn’t going to get it done.  It requires a group of people.”  The text will finally fade into the last form of text before the ending credits saying, “‘Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it’ – Howard Zinn”.  I want this last scene to call for action in not only students, but everyone who watches this documentary and sees that there needs to be something done.  During this final scene I want to play “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper.  I chose this song because the tone is rebellious, and that’s exactly the tone I want to convey when calling for action to help fix this issue in the country’s education system.  Lyrics such as “Well we got no choice”, and “Making all the noise” really goes along with what I am trying to challenge the audience to do.  I chose to not have a voice over for this last scene because it seems to add to the tone, making it a little more dramatic with only the music playing in the background.  From this last scene it will transition into the closing credits, and that’s the end.

Works Cited Page

Campos, Paul F. "The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much." The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Apr. 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-reason-college-tuition-costs-so-much.html?WT.mc_id=2015-MAY-WCASeq-OPINION&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=WCARETARG&_r=2>.

Cooper, Alice.  School’s Out.  Gutter Cat, 1972.  Video.

Farley, Dylan.  Personal interview.  14 November 2015

Jackson 5.  ABC.  The Young Folks,  1970. Video.

Mobile, PressTV. "US Universities Tuition Fees Rise - Press TV News." YouTube. YouTube, 07 Apr. 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8XDiwv3b0E>.

Picture of Professor. Personal photograph by author.  10 Nov. 2015.

Picture of Dylan studying.  Personal photograph by author.  01 Nov. 2015.

Schoen, John W. "The Real Reasons a College Degree Costs so Much." CNBC. CNBC, 16 June 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/16/why-college-costs-are-so-high-and-rising.html>

Schoen, John.  Why Does a College Degree Cost So Much? 2015, College Price Inflation, Nov. 2015, Web.  <http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/16/why-college-costs-are-so-high-and-rising.html>

TheEducationTrends.com. "The Famous Nelson Mandela Quote." The Education Trends. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theeducationtrends.com%2Fthe-famous-nelson-mandela-education-quote%2F>.

Thompson, Brett.  “Thoughts on College Tuition.”  Survey.  surveymonkey.com. 12 Nov. 2015.

Video of Students Walking. Personal video by author.  12 Nov. 2015.

Video of Dorm Building. Personal video by author.  12 Nov. 2015.

Yeagle, Dr. Philip L. "Tuition Rise at Public Universities: Who's Responsible?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 03 Dec. 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-philip-l-yeagle/public-universities-tuition_b_2234314.html>.

Blog 7

The documentary process is going pretty smoothly so far.  I'm becoming more proficient in Adobe Premiere (the video making program I am using), and starting to get an outline of what will be in the documentary.  I have gathered most of my sources, and most of the footage that I wanted to film, however there are still a couple more things I'd like to do.  Through research I have learned more about my community's biggest problem, which is the high tuition cost that is still rising every year.  I've learned why this is happening and also how it affects some students.  The biggest challenge for me so far is incorporating sources into the video that will provide evidence for my argument.  I have never done a project like this, so another difficulty was getting used to the program, and figuring out how to do what I want.  YouTube tutorials helped me a lot through this process.  One thing that's been fairly good so far is that there is a lot of source material for what I am doing my documentary over.  The problem in my community is a problem that college campuses all over the campus are facing.  This helps strengthen my argument, and gives me confidence that this is a big issue, and it needs to be fixed.