Audio Essay Project Proposal

• http://www.npr.org/player/embed/463599687/463599761

My topic is the Red Sand Project, and it aims to draw attention to human trafficking by putting the red sand in cracks of sidewalks. It symbolizes the people sold into the slavery come from fragile and cracked backgrounds, and the red symbolizes urgency.

I might do a little interview or game with some people and ask them what they think of when they hear certain words, such as “red” or “slavery.” I could get friends and housemates to be recorded. This game technique was used in the podcast I listened to for class Tuesday. It helped get the audience more involved. They would change a letter in a movie title.

I could also tell my participants the idea of the project and get their reactions and see if they were aware of the human trafficking happening around us. One of my friends lives in Toledo, which is a major area for human trafficking because of the water ways and I-75.

I’m going to need to do more research about human trafficking and maybe find some strong facts that would be shocking to listeners. I will look on the Miami University Libraries website and try to find some scholarly sources with accurate information.

I thought it was gross there is a mosquito factory in Brazil and I was interested to learn about the religion that was so extreme the followers don’t even walk on the grass. The woman speaking, Sonia Shah, was so upset and guilty for killing a mosquito as a girl. I like that when they talk about a factory, they use factory sounds. When they talk about genes and cells, they use robot and technology noises.  The background music is light and not very distracting, but adds a lot of depth to the podcast. Without the music and sound effects it would be less dramatic and effective. To emphasize the waiting period after releasing the male mosquitos, the podcast was silent.

The McKee article helped me to think about the music and what it could mean. I enjoyed the addition of music in the required podcast, but as I was listening to the background noises I thought to myself, “how was I going to find similar sounds?” It fit perfectly, but seems like one of those things that are hard to do on your own. The McKee article gave me a little bit of guidance on that.

It was interesting that the McKee article also talked about the silence, which I thought was unique in the listening (I listened before I read). “We can now hear sounds, we can also now hear silences.” That line stuck out to me. We wouldn’t normally consider silence being heard, but rather a lack of things to hear.

DeVoss and Platt

I never knew that a small retouch for two photos could cost $1,500. That is insane to me because I’m sure the original photo was perfectly fine, especially when it features beautiful women. Not to mention the effort by expert hair stylists and make up artists that was put into getting the model ready for the shoot. If the whole photo is going to be retouched, why bother with extensive time in the make up chair.

Also unbelievable to me was the fact that Redbook thought it would be easier to find two photos of Julia Roberts and mix them through editing, rather than just hire her for a photo shoot. It seems easier to me to have her come in, smile for the camera and call it a day.

Something I found funny about the Harry Potter advertisements is that the 3d version showed Hermione’s breasts larger than the 2d version.

Photoshop scandals are pretty common it seems. People try to exaggerate and over do it when it is unnecessary. Target got caught editing their swimsuit models a few years ago. They got a lot of heat for exaggerating the thigh gap. The editing was not double checked because you could tell the photoshopper messed up. There was a square where her swimsuit bottoms were. Also, they tried to make her torso look smaller but it wasn’t a smooth edit there either.

Aerie recently came out with a campaign to not retouch the girls in their merchandise. It seemed very successful. They held events and made the brand seem approachable for “real girls.” It had the comfort factor that brands such as Victoria Secret lack.

Visual-Textual Project Rough Draft

“The Red Sand Project is an activist artwork by Molly Gochman, a NYC-based artist.”

The purpose of this visual text is to inspire people to get involved with the Red Sand Project to end modern day slavery. People all over the world are joining the movement to raise awareness for human trafficking by putting red sand in the cracks of sidewalks. The cracks symbolize the fact that most people sold into the slavery come from cracked homes or are overlooked for vulnerabilities that lead to exploitation. The red symbolizes urgency as human trafficking needs to stop and needs awareness.

I chose to use black and white to contrast with the red. I liked the idea of the sidewalk disappearing around the curve to symbolize that this could continue. The bold and capitalized letters were used to draw attention to certain words and emphasize them. The place of publication could be a flyer in the academic buildings as well as on social media and the caption could host more information.

The hashtag was necessary to include because that’s how the movement is done. People are supposed to take a picture and post it on social media with the hashtag. I wanted to include the website to lead the audience to more information. It would be hard to explain the project in a few words on a visual like this. I tried to keep it simple because too much going on would take away from the project.

I pulled this photo off of Google, I hope it’s okay.

 

Visual Text Run Ins

I never really noticed how many visual texts I run into on a daily basis. In my two hour period. I left my room and went to the rec. My log looked like this:

Love wall Decoration – The audience is anyone in my room, and the purpose is to serve as decoration.
Sparkle wall decoration – The audience is anyone in my room, and the purpose is to serve as decoration.
Amazon Prime shipping box – The audience is the post office and myself. The purpose is to advertise their service as well as let me know what the package is.
Cheetah Girls movie dvd case – The purpose is to inform someone looking for a movie which movie is inside, and to look appealing so someone will watch and buy it.
McDonald’s water cup – The purpose is to advertise where the product came from.
Prescription label – The audience is me and the pharmacist, and the purpose is to inform me of instructions and possible side effects as well as information about it.
Wine bottle label – The purpose is to inform the buyer of the kind of wine in the bottle, including location, kind, year and brand.
Mail – The information on the envelope lets me, my housemates, and the mail man know who the mail is for.
Wrigley Field house sign – The audience is anyone who drives by, and the purpose is to inform them of the name of my house. It loses its context if the house sign wasn’t in Oxford.
Garbage can Rumpke logo – The logo advertises Rumpke’s services.
License plates – The purpose is to register cars and to differentiate the cars of the same make and model.
Sign for a church – The purpose is to promote the church and the audience is anyone who drives past. It also serves as a notification as to where the church is on the road.
Sign for Campus Avenue Building – This is for potential Miami students as well as current students and administration. They know where the building is.
Police car decal – The audience is all the people in Oxford and the purpose is to know they are safe as well as to know not to break any laws in the presence of the cop car.
Sign for Parking Garage – The sign is mostly for high school students families so they know where to park, as well as students and faculty who park their cars there.
Sign for Miami Recreation Center, “Welcome to the Rec” – The audience is anyone going into the center and it is intended to make them feel welcome and in a nice environment to exercise.
Calories, Muscles, Quick Start, (etc.) – These are the labels on the elliptical cardio machine. It informs the person working out of necessary information like the calories, heart rate and level.
Repeat.

Advertisement

This advertisement caught my eye for many reasons. I noticed the background of Paris and the pink of the flowers and ruffle-trimmed dress. It was feminine and seemed classy and romantic. Givenchy is high end and Amanda Seyfried is a famous actress. The two are similar and fitting. I liked that it didn’t feature someone who is always in the media, but an actress who is less prominent to the public eye. She is still recognizable, yet maybe not the first person you think of when you hear “actress.”

Her blonde hair is styled in a girlish way with the soft waves. Her make up isn’t over powering and her pale skin adds to the photo. It seems to be spring, like love is in the air. Paris is the perfect backdrop as it is known as the city of love. Just enough skin is showing where it isn’t too revealing, yet still suggestive.

I originally found it in a Marie Claire magazine. It is full of advertisements, fashion tips and beauty products, so a perfume ad is not irregular. This is a commonly occurring format for an advertisement. The product is small and in the corner, as the subject takes focus. The medium is appropriate for the message, as discussed in the Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz and Walter reading.

This advertisement is directed towards successful women that can splurge on items such as designer perfume and fashion magazines. It is romantic and is intended to make the woman wearing the perfume feel irresistible.

Topic Proposal

As of right now, I have a few ideas for my project. I’m debating on the environment, Greek life or health. The environment and health are such large topics I don’t know which direction I would take yet. I love polar bears so maybe global warming. I love learning new health tips and tricks with foods and workout. I’m a vegetarian and enjoy healthy eating. Greek life would be an easy topic because it is a prominent aspect of my life and something new is always happening. Whether its someone getting into trouble or doing something awesome and philanthropic. Blogs and the news are areas for current conversation I think. Many people are interested in these

I was also thinking I could do fashion trends. I’m a fashion design minor and would have fun exploring current trends. I’m not sure if it is very applicable to the project though. I could do “fashion victims” and how the workers in underdeveloped countries working in sweat shops are the true fashion victims. Accidents happen all the time and it goes practically unnoticed in our media. Many large brands use these sweat shops such as Zara and Mango. They offer cheap clothes and a wide variety. This is pretty applicable to college Miami students.

Recently I got involved with the Red Sand Project which is a movement started by a NYC artist to raise awareness to human trafficking. I could also go in that direction. The idea is to put red sand in the sidewalk cracks to symbolize urgency and that most people sold into human trafficking come from an unstable household (cracked sidewalk). I could do something cool with the visual aspect of the project with that. A lot of people are unaware that this is such a large issue. It is even scarier that I-75 is a huge route used, only a few miles away from us at Miami.

My interests are so spread out I’m having trouble narrowing it down to something I can commit to all semester. I don’t want to do something that requires a ton of extra research but I don’t want to pick one that’s boring and not exciting to work with. I want to be creative and have fun with this project. I feel like there are so many things that I am passionate about but nothing I want to turn into a school project. I’m hoping the conference will assure me of a topic selection and inspire me to go outside of the box with this project.

Meme

Covino & Joliffe and Alexander & Losh Readings

The Alexander and Losh comic was easy to read, and easy to understand. It included a interesting new way to learn something in an engaging way with pictures, words and practical examples. It seems like it was directed towards a younger audience, perhaps high school age. I could see it being published in a textbook maybe, a reference handout or online. It focused on the differences in uses of ethos, logos and pathos. At the end it used kairos, without having to explain it. The audience has to infer that it is synonymous with time. This one made rhetoric easy to understand and apply to everyday life.

The Covino and Joliffe article seems like it was directed towards college aged students or beyond. It was very wordy, and required focus and concentration to understand the concepts. This portrays rhetoric as a philosophical act. To be honest, I lost interest and found myself only focusing on the underlined sentences, while thinking about other things during the rest. This may have originally appeared in a scholarly research journal. It was definitely more thorough and thought out.

Reflecting on the two readings, I feel badly that I preferred the comic and found the article boring. I wish I would have opened the article first. I think I would have paid better attention and understood it better, but I think I was lazy after reading the comic and took the easy way out. They seem like two extremes, but in the end I learned something from both of them.

 

“Everything is an Argument”

I don’t believe that everything is an argument. “Hi how’s it going?” is not an argument to me. I’m not arguing that my question is worth a response, I’m simply asking someone how things are going. Saying Batman comes out June 23rd isn’t an argument to me either, just a fact. There is no competing side there, its factual more so than argumentative. The same goes for newspaper articles. Some articles are purely informative, not inspiring a call to action. What I chose to eat for lunch doesn’t seem like an argument either. I would generally define an argument as two or more disagreeing sides.

I thought the example of using arguments to make decisions was accurate, and i particularly liked the example of selecting a major in college. The pro-con lists are something people make on a regular basis to make decisions. I thought that was interesting to think of that situation as an argument. The reading also touched on arguments in a court room, which I thought was interesting. I never thought of it in that way.

I wasn’t surprised about the section on ethos, logos and pathos. I remembered from earlier English classes the purpose and concepts of those words in rhetoric.

New Years Resolutions – Parks and Rec

The end of December, mentally preparing for a New Years Resolution.. 

Coming up with strict and crazy diet rules to get help lose weight..

Going out for NYE and already breaking your resolution by drunk eating..

 

Going to brunch with your squad in the morning to cure the hangover…

Then you realize immediately that you are totally content with yourself and enjoy the food you truly love…

In your moment of self-love you decide to break up with the salads..

And there you are, left with a happy heart and tummy. You rid off any healthy food and go big or go home…

Maybe next year!!!!!!!!