Speed of Sound - Music Video

The music video I chose was Speed of Sound by Coldplay.  The video is pretty simple using an even combination of long, medium, and close shots (especially of Chris's hands as he plays the piano).  The video is pretty evenly broken up into 6 second shots, the longest being about 6 seconds in the middle of the song displaying a long shot.

Annotated Bibliography

Kociolek, Elizabeth. Personal Interview. Nd.

Elizabeth Kociolek is an advisor for the Education Abroad program who has earned a BA in German language, as well as spent a semester in Germany to be an intern at an art museum. She joined a faculty program to Italy and did a summer internship at Ireland. As a traveler herself, she can talk about the many things she learned from those experiences and provide benefits for studying abroad.

Ogden, Anthony. Personal Interview. Nd.

Dr. Anthony Ogden, being the director of Education Abroad, is a credible source for the documentary. He may have had many experiences with traveling and is a member of the Association of International Educators, the Forum of Education Abroad, and the Association of International Education Administrators. It would be interesting to know what kind of experiences students can pick up from study abroad. 

Riker, Seth. Personal Interview. Nd.

Seth Riker is the Education Abroad Promotion and Outreach Coordinator at the University of Kentucky. He may be useful for the documentary as his job is different from the other staff in the Education Abroad. Some questions that might be asked in this interview are ‘Why students should consider studying abroad?’ and ‘What benefits does studying abroad have?’

Tang, Yiyi. Personal Interview. Nd.

Yiyi Tang is the Financial Manager of Education Abroad and has earned her bachelor’s degree in finance. With her experience in finance, she could be useful to talk to about scholarship opportunities for study abroad. Tang could answer questions about who is eligible for applying for study abroad scholarships as well as how and when students can apply for scholarships.

Teague, Thomas. Personal Interview. Nd.

Thomas Teague coordinates orientation programming to support students with their international experiences. He is an advisor who has earned his bachelor’s degree in French Language and Literature. Teague can help talk about the progress of students who study abroad and what steps they need to do in preparation of traveling.

Born into Coal

While “Born into Coal” utilizes both human interest and standard narrative styles, the main style that stood out to me was that of a human interest piece.  The documentary showed the story of a common coal mining family in West Virginia whose daughter was in a pageant for the title of West Virginia Coal Queen while also highlighting the life of another family in West Virginia affected by a coal mine collapse across the state.  Though following the daughter, Ariana, to her pageant was a standard narrative, the heart of the piece was a human interest piece on the effects of coal mining on the miner and his family.  The father works hard in the mines every day in order to provide for his family while his wife worries and prays for him and his daughter takes classes in hopes that if something bad occurs she can make an effort to help him.  Though the life they live is difficult and the money in meager, the family continues to life a somewhat normal life.

              The shots that really stood out to me were the differences in the hands between the father and the daughter – the father’s hands were permanently dirty with his nails stained black while his daughter and wife had pristine, fake manicures as they did not have to work the hard job in the mine.  I believe that the shots taken are very effective in showing the audience that hard, physical labor takes a toll on the body that is often visible, and that hard work turns into the everyday things the worker can provide for his family, such as the plethora of jeans held in the perfectly manicured hands of his daughter.  Though the life of a coal miner is treacherous and often deadly, the reward is seeing his family happy and thriving because he could provide for his family and I think these shots aid in making that point.

Last Meals

The authors/photographers of the two pieces presented obviously had a point to make and a story to tell about last meals for inmates and the death penalty yet they do not explicitly state their opinions on the matter.  These authors let their images and sparse words do the talking, which can often make a more poignant statement than any essay or video ever could.

The two websites exemplify strong visual rhetoric in different ways.  No Seconds uses beautifully posed, well cooked meals as the main focus of the image with a backdrop of a table that changes from image to image – possibly to give each inmate displayed a unique image and feel for the reader to better grasp.  Next to the image is a list stating the inmates name, age, state imprisoned in, charges, sentence, and description of last meal.  Through these statements we are able to get an image of the prisoner in our head of what he/she enjoyed and what they did to deserve the death penalty.  The visual of the font type also affected me as it was very plain and sterile, much like a prison. 

The Last Meal Project was also very good at manipulating an image in order to get a response from the audience.  The images in this album however are very different from those in No Seconds, they give a photo of the inmate that is dark and somewhat haunting with very plain images of the food they had requested as a last meal.  The text on the side was similar to that in No Seconds in a plain, typewriter-esque font describing the inmates name, last meal, and sentence along with when and where they were executed.  The most poignant of the images in this album for me was that of Jonathan Wayne Nobles as he requested the Eucharist and Sacrament, wanting a piece of himself that he had forgotten when he because a criminal.  I believe the photographer was trying make his/her audience more aware of the fact that these were people about to die and not just about a nice meal a prisoner had with in prison.

              Both photographers did a wonderful job in attempting to elicit a response from their audiences and I have no doubt that they received one.  No Seconds affected me the most through both its images and text, for we were given a better look at who the person was on paper and what their last meal was.  The Last Meal Project was also wonderful, the text along with the photos of the inmates made the album more personable, but there was something in the album that just did not affect me nearly as much as that of No Seconds.  Visual Rhetoric is a very important aspect in media that many of us do not consciously think about, it gives us new ways to see a situation and can sway an audience’s opinion without the audience being aware of what is occurring.