Reflection
Over the last couple of weeks we have been exploring the world of mashup videos. After watching various mashups in class, we were asked to pick a topic that we wanted to explore in our own mashup. After thinking about my own life and the controversial topics that are important to me, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to focus on the topic of LGBT rights and Gay Marriage. This is a topic that really hits home to me, and I felt that exploring it would only further emphasize the importance to me. Click here to see my proposal for my mashup! The proposal process also meets the fifth core value on the Core Values for Department of Writing Arts Undergraduate Programs. This core value states "Writing Arts students will demonstrate self-critical awareness of their writing." The proposal process meets the requirement for this core value because we were required to answer the question of what risks we were taking in choosing the topic that we chose. By answering this question, we had to analyze certain aspects of the topic and basically describe what made us choose that topic. After picking my topic, the next step was storyboarding. This was a unique way to organize all the videos and images that I wanted to use in my video. This step in the process really helped me formulate the argument that I wanted to make, and helped to make my argument stronger with the visual evidence. One of our last steps in the mashup process was to write an annotated bibliography. This was something new to me, and it was a very interesting document to work on. I have never had to explain why I used certain sources and what my vision was for them. I believe that writing this prior to starting the mashup would have also helped me formulate my argument.
A mashup of videos and pictures was a totally new thing to me. As a Writing Arts major, I am used to writing paper after paper, story after story, poem after poem, of things that may or may not interest me. But in the last three years at Rowan, I have never been given the opportunity to have the type of creativity and freedom that I did while creating my mashup video. There is a great deal of power in being able to present an idea through spoken words and pictures. This power comes from the fact that you are less limited by the words you write because of the pictures and videos that are doing the speaking for you. I feel like by finding the video clips and pictures that I wanted to use to present my message, my message became stronger. This stronger message provided me with a great deal of pride when the final product was done. I was happy that I was able to convey a deep meaning and message to my audience, and I did not have to solely rely on words to do so. I feel like writing students are always concerned that our ideas or topics are never accurately represented by the words that we write. Having someone else speak the words or even presenting an image without words at all provides a better understanding of our ideas and thoughts. It is a visual representation of what we are all dying to say and present to the world. I feel like I have become a better writer because of the mashup process. I feel like my ability to formulate arguments and support them has enhanced. Not only do I feel more comfortable with my ability to form an argument and support it with evidence, I also feel more comfortable using different forms of media. There have been times in my writing career that I have been asked to write something, but also include pictures, graphs, and charts that support what I have been writing. While this may seem like an easy task, I am never sure if there is such things as TOO much support, especially support of a different form of media. I believe that I now have a better understanding of how to use other forms of media, specifically pictures, to further support a written argument. I believe that these new skills that I have enhanced are directly related to the first Core Value for the Department of Writing Arts Undergraduate Programs. The first core value states, "Writing Arts students will demonstrate understanding of a variety of genre conventions and exhibit rhetorical adaptability in applying those conventions." By using a variety of media sources, including pictures and video clips, I have met the expectations of this core value. We were required to find different video clips, images, and songs that defended our position in the argument. This is an example of understanding a variety of genre conventions and exhibiting adaptability in applying those conventions.
When we were assigned this project, I was struggling to pick a topic. I really had to analyze controversial topics that were important to me. While I am not super aware of the controversies of our generation, I do pay extra attention to a few big ones. When I picked LGBT rights and marriage for this video, I had to sit down and really decide what my point of view on the topic was. I was always supportive of the LGBT community, and I have always said that I hope that one day they will be able to get married, but I felt like my argument was simply built on the fact that I know members of the LGBT community. I never really sat down and looked at documents, pictures, or videos that both advocate LGBT rights and support anti-gay sentiments. I think it was important for me to sit down and research this topic because it caused me to really start developing my argument. From the research that I did, my argument was born. I strongly believe that with the way that times are changing, it is inevitable for the LGBT community to be granted legal civil rights and marriage rights. The people who are against this have weak arguments that are not backed up by anything except for hatred. The United States of America is supposed to be a place of "freedom" and "equality" and by discriminating against the LGBT community, the U.S. is no longer a place where things like freedom and equality are granted. Once I created my argument, I had to decide what aspects of the argument I wanted to display. I realized that it was going to be a more effective video if I included the horrific video clips and pictures of advocates of anti-gay sentiment. I felt like showing the other side of the argument, with a transition of the realization that these people are lacking a true argument, would make the images and video clips of advocating LGBT rights, more effective. My first draft of my video included a lot of video clips and another mash-up that I could not claim as mine. The editing process was hard for me because there are so many amazing pictures and videos out there, and I wanted my video to include all of them! I had to make some pretty drastic decisions when it came to editing. However, I felt like the most effective thing for me to do would be to make the images appear for shorter periods of time, as well as to delete some of the "unnecessary" video clips. There were multiple clips that reinforced the same idea, or spoke the same message, and it was really unnecessary to include both. These were the first clips to go. The next big editing move was the transitions between the images, videos, and music. The editing process really helped me to exhibit core value five. This core value states, "Writing Arts students will demonstrate self-critical awareness of their writing." Although we were allowed to ask for peer revisions, it was ultimately my decision about what editing I would and would not do. I really had to analyze which pieces were necessary to defend my argument, and which pieces were simply taking up time and space. This was a difficult task for me, since I really like all of the clips and pictures that I chose. This is why I was required to be self-critical and aware of the flaws in my video.
So, without further ado, here is my mashup!
A mashup of videos and pictures was a totally new thing to me. As a Writing Arts major, I am used to writing paper after paper, story after story, poem after poem, of things that may or may not interest me. But in the last three years at Rowan, I have never been given the opportunity to have the type of creativity and freedom that I did while creating my mashup video. There is a great deal of power in being able to present an idea through spoken words and pictures. This power comes from the fact that you are less limited by the words you write because of the pictures and videos that are doing the speaking for you. I feel like by finding the video clips and pictures that I wanted to use to present my message, my message became stronger. This stronger message provided me with a great deal of pride when the final product was done. I was happy that I was able to convey a deep meaning and message to my audience, and I did not have to solely rely on words to do so. I feel like writing students are always concerned that our ideas or topics are never accurately represented by the words that we write. Having someone else speak the words or even presenting an image without words at all provides a better understanding of our ideas and thoughts. It is a visual representation of what we are all dying to say and present to the world. I feel like I have become a better writer because of the mashup process. I feel like my ability to formulate arguments and support them has enhanced. Not only do I feel more comfortable with my ability to form an argument and support it with evidence, I also feel more comfortable using different forms of media. There have been times in my writing career that I have been asked to write something, but also include pictures, graphs, and charts that support what I have been writing. While this may seem like an easy task, I am never sure if there is such things as TOO much support, especially support of a different form of media. I believe that I now have a better understanding of how to use other forms of media, specifically pictures, to further support a written argument. I believe that these new skills that I have enhanced are directly related to the first Core Value for the Department of Writing Arts Undergraduate Programs. The first core value states, "Writing Arts students will demonstrate understanding of a variety of genre conventions and exhibit rhetorical adaptability in applying those conventions." By using a variety of media sources, including pictures and video clips, I have met the expectations of this core value. We were required to find different video clips, images, and songs that defended our position in the argument. This is an example of understanding a variety of genre conventions and exhibiting adaptability in applying those conventions.
When we were assigned this project, I was struggling to pick a topic. I really had to analyze controversial topics that were important to me. While I am not super aware of the controversies of our generation, I do pay extra attention to a few big ones. When I picked LGBT rights and marriage for this video, I had to sit down and really decide what my point of view on the topic was. I was always supportive of the LGBT community, and I have always said that I hope that one day they will be able to get married, but I felt like my argument was simply built on the fact that I know members of the LGBT community. I never really sat down and looked at documents, pictures, or videos that both advocate LGBT rights and support anti-gay sentiments. I think it was important for me to sit down and research this topic because it caused me to really start developing my argument. From the research that I did, my argument was born. I strongly believe that with the way that times are changing, it is inevitable for the LGBT community to be granted legal civil rights and marriage rights. The people who are against this have weak arguments that are not backed up by anything except for hatred. The United States of America is supposed to be a place of "freedom" and "equality" and by discriminating against the LGBT community, the U.S. is no longer a place where things like freedom and equality are granted. Once I created my argument, I had to decide what aspects of the argument I wanted to display. I realized that it was going to be a more effective video if I included the horrific video clips and pictures of advocates of anti-gay sentiment. I felt like showing the other side of the argument, with a transition of the realization that these people are lacking a true argument, would make the images and video clips of advocating LGBT rights, more effective. My first draft of my video included a lot of video clips and another mash-up that I could not claim as mine. The editing process was hard for me because there are so many amazing pictures and videos out there, and I wanted my video to include all of them! I had to make some pretty drastic decisions when it came to editing. However, I felt like the most effective thing for me to do would be to make the images appear for shorter periods of time, as well as to delete some of the "unnecessary" video clips. There were multiple clips that reinforced the same idea, or spoke the same message, and it was really unnecessary to include both. These were the first clips to go. The next big editing move was the transitions between the images, videos, and music. The editing process really helped me to exhibit core value five. This core value states, "Writing Arts students will demonstrate self-critical awareness of their writing." Although we were allowed to ask for peer revisions, it was ultimately my decision about what editing I would and would not do. I really had to analyze which pieces were necessary to defend my argument, and which pieces were simply taking up time and space. This was a difficult task for me, since I really like all of the clips and pictures that I chose. This is why I was required to be self-critical and aware of the flaws in my video.
So, without further ado, here is my mashup!