Fireside Chat

Overall, I thought that fireside chat went pretty good.  To begin my process, I started thinking, “What do I believe in?” As I started brainstorming, I found it was actually hard to come up with something that I could turn into a multimedia presentation.  At last, I decided on doing mine on the negative effects of manipulative relationships.  I do think this is a very serious problem that can be prevented if people are cautious and self-aware. I reflected on my own experiences with this subject in my own relationships as well as seeing many friends being manipulated and taken advantage of.  I wanted to show others the seriousness of what happens in these relationships and that they are a huge problem.  I was inspired by Pinkhossov’s photos; they are a collection of photos showing 4 different settings and 4 different ways people pray.  It is all the same action, however the pictures are all incredibly different.  I also was inspired by the multimedia play “Gone Missing” that BYU put on a couple months ago.  It was a culmination of stories of people that had been interviewed about what they had lost.  I knew I did not just want to share my own story; I wanted to show everyone else’s too.  As I continued through my process, I started interviewing my roommates and friends about their experiences with this subject.  It was interesting to see people’s reactions.  I clipped together a video of what my friends thought on the matter, as well as created some narration taking bits and pieces of my story as well as others and making it into one. I thought the final performance went well.  However, after watching everyone else’s I was flooded with new ideas with what I could of done.  While I think there are many other stories I could of told instead, I loved hearing everyone else’s beliefs.  I thought it was a great way to end the class.  It was amazing to hear what everyone had to say and how different each performance was even though we were all given the same assignment. 

Concerned Citizen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw6gw240_iQ&feature=youtu.be

As we began brainstorming who and what to film for our project, our thoughts turned to our friend Barett who contributes to the community by participating in chemistry magic shows for elementary school students. Growing up I remember getting excited to miss class to go to assemblies no matter what the subject or focus.  As a result, we thought Barett would be interesting because he is helping kids become more excited about chemistry, a subject that many students dread.  As for a theme and how we put our film together, Star Wars just happened to be what was happening at the science show and we just really wanted to show how this was impacting the kids.  We have a lot of shots with children and we wanted to share the excitement they had. The music becomes more serious as the conversation with Barett becomes more purposeful and reflective. At this point Barett begins talking about how a lot of science jobs are going overseas and that he wants to instill within children a desire to pursue science as a career. Whereas the music before is lighthearted to fit the party, the more serious music occurs as we want the emphasis to be on how important this actually is. In Arlene Goldbard’s article Human Rights and Culture: From Datastan to Storyland she discussed how stories can change culture. Barett, too, feels that the story of science can help change our nation’s culture to a more science oriented people. Frontline: Digital Nation is a documentary that is seeking to make a change in a similar way. It recognizes the use of technology, but also how it is consuming our world. By sharing stories from people and their experiences with technology the documentary hopes to help us become more informed and act on that information.  Barett hopes for the same thing regarding chemistry.