Introduction

The genesis of this project came from my love of science fiction and video essays. The project was essentially composed of two parts: a scene analysis (Process Document C) and a textual analysis. I drafted my textual analysis about Lepore's "A Golden Age for Dystopian Fiction". In this work (Process Document A) I chose to talk about how fiction is really an excuse for the author to present their own ideas. I then decided to choose a scene that supported the arguments I made prior. I chose a scene about artificial intelligence for the 2013 science fiction movie "Her". I knew "Her" would be perfect for the project, because it is an optimistic view of the future and technology. Spike Jonze uses the movie to communicate his ideas about the connections humans and machines may have in the near future. From there the drafting of my storyboard (Process Document B) was quick work. I was able to use all the affordances of a video essay to support my rhetorical ideas. 

Artifact 1

Reflection

Goals: The goal of the video essay was clear.  I needed to discuss how modern entertainment uses the concept of "the future". I needed to support this stance with arguments from one of the various texts read in class.

Purpose: My purpose in creating the video was to convince the audience that all utopian/dystopian fiction has the author's political/social/economic ideas underlying the world they have created. I supported this rhetoric through analysis of the movie scene and using other dystopian literatures as examples. 

Audience: I definitely chose my audience carefully. I needed to appeal to those with no opinion on my argument while trying to convince those with more devout stances of the integrity of my ideas. This is best illustrated by explaining of the concepts and then giving examples that may serve to change the opinions of the latter half of my intended audience. 

Features: Exceptional video essays need to effective use out of both the aural and visual aspects of the medium. As far as the visual aspect of video, I used Adobe AfterEffects to create interesting and engaging animations. For the aural portion, I made sure that my audio quality was pristine using high quality microphones and footage. I synthesized these to create an engaging video essay. 

Process: Given more time, I would have loved to re-record my speaking. At times I can be  very quiet. While the quality of the audio is very good, I think that I could have spoken more clearly and slowly in order to fully make use of such pristine quality. 

Process Documents