Category: Blog 11: Remix Proposal

My research paper will be remixed, with a focus on police brutality in America and its history of targeting people of color. My target audience for this presentation is, of course, my classmates, but it also includes everyone in today’s society. Every day, everybody with a smart phone or a television hears about police violence in the United States. Such heinous acts against people of color are a cancer that is rapidly spreading and must be tackled. My goal in giving this presentation is to not only educate people on our broken justice system and police brutality, but also to persuade them to take action against it. In my presentation, I will use a few images that I believe are great for expressing the realism of the situation. People frequently hear about police brutality, but no one looks into the aftermath of such violence and the impact it has on the black community. People can really feel the presence of the police’s deadly power and activity while dealing with black people by using photos and images. I believe I benefited more by giving a presentation on this subject since reading about the bad effects of police violence is different from talking about it. This is a problem that has to be discussed since it affects a large number of people. By redoing my research paper, I will be able to speak to my classmates and others face to face, which will allow me to appeal to their emotions while also allowing them to see how enthusiastic I am about the subject. Changes must be made, and this remix is an excellent approach to raise awareness about police violence.

For my remix proposal, I am planning on making a slideshow for my presentation. I am choosing my research paper for my remix proposal as I feel like it is more suited for a presentation. For the project, the audience would be the hip hop listeners and those who are aware of racism against blacks in society as my research paper was about it. The purpose of the project is to display the story of Kendrick Lamar’s album, To Pimp a Butterfly, and show its message of systematic racism being a key issue within America which is impacting many black people. The genre will be racism and societal issues. The medium for the project will be a slideshow that incorporates images, possibly lyrics and a video. Within this project, I will be conveying the story of Kendrick Lamar’s album and how the story of the transformation from a caterpillar into a butterfly is symbolic of the lives of black people once they become aware and rise from the negativity that exists in society and it will argue that racism is a very prevalent thing in society. I will go about making my argument by going through the key themes present within the album to show that racism is still a prominent thing in America and by going through the journey of black people that Kendrick Lamar states in the album. I will choose the rhetorical forms of images that relate to the album’s themes, possibly some lyrics and maybe a video that includes Kendrick. Remaking my research paper into a multimedia piece will change my project because it will not be as descriptive but it will be persuasive and engaging for the audience instead. The project will lose its descriptiveness and very detailed analysis but will gain a more engaging and intriguing way of displaying my work. The process so far has not been bad because I have a sense of direction when it comes to what I will do for the project but I need to keep the project concise and what I like best is the creativity involved within the project. My personal motivations for tackling this project is showing how racism is still existing in society.

For my remix project, I will remix my first article, which exposes the effects of differential treatment by the government on the different clans of human society during the epidemic. My first idea was to find a lot of images on the internet, as well as some elements of the arguments I gathered, combine them and then I would explain them, but in this case the visual and aural representation would not be very satisfying. I think the pictures are still not enough to fully express my meaning, and inside my article, just reading the text may only get a slice of what happened, but not a more intuitive sense of its impact. So I’m going to make an iMovie, and I might improve some of the ideas in my article a little bit, make it more concise, and add some audio mixes to make it sound more comfortable. The video approach adds a lot of possibilities, using a combination of text and audio to make the content more creative and engaging, and I’ll show different examples in the video that focus on a general direction of the topic, and then make a summary at the end.

The change this will make is that it will make my article more attractive and the content of the article will be slightly overhauled. The content of my article may not be enough to fully show what I want to say, so I will add some extra content to make it look fuller. Nonetheless, it may not be as detailed as described in the article, but in the main it is a straightforward presentation of an important point. I think the video was the hardest part of the production process, and it took a lot of time to think about how to put multiple pieces of content together.

 

For my remix project, I am planning on making a Powerpoint. I plan on remixing my Argumentative Research paper on “Donor Organs.” Currently, I’m gathering more visual statistics to help reinforce what I mentioned throughout my research paper. I feel like graphics will help keep my audience focused. Additionally, the statistics I provide in my presentation will allow them to see it for themselves and decide how they feel about organ donations.

Remaking my work into a multimedia piece will help the people who have not made up their minds about organ donations decide the details I provide in the Powerpoint slides. Additionally, graphs and other images I use can certainly make it more engaging for different groups of audiences that prefer looking at visuals other than text. Overall, this project can make it easier for my audience to look through as it would be looking through different slides and visuals rather than going through the 10-page research paper. I feel that these slides would allow the audience to make their very own conclusions based on my presentation. This project will also allow me to express my research in other ways rather than through text.

I’m currently facing a challenge in deciding the graphics I want to use in my presentation. I feel that in my research, I have come up with many pieces and that I should cut down on how many graphics I use overall. Some of my personal motivations for this project is that I know of someone who has gotten a kidney transplant. However, he had certain advantages as he had access to more money when compared to an ordinary citizen. Additionally, his wealth and connections put him ahead of thousands of individuals that wait for organ transplants.

For my remix project I want to make a PowerPoint and record myself discussing it via zoom or a similar mode. I originally wanted to make a PowerPoint, but was struggling with how to record it. Today’s class was helpful in putting that last puzzle piece together. The intent was to cover the core themes of my paper (white privilege, police brutality, cultural appropriation) through imagery instead of text. A research paper deals with text and wording, which is important, but often it can lose the power of the image. My PowerPoint will feature mainly images with text that I have written that I will record. This way, images are the focal point of the piece. An academic paper is intended for scholars and those who are well-versed in the topics I am discussing. I appreciate having that conversation between people who are experts in the field, but a PowerPoint based on an image is much more accessible. By utilizing images and recording brief discussions, the remix of my paper becomes accessible to students, curious people, and anyone interested in learning. Academic prestige can often block many people from learning because the language and presentation are intimidating. I understand that choosing a PowerPoint based on images means I lose much of the complexity in my paper because I cannot recite seven pages of text. That being said, I am excited to explore what is gained by making my academic paper more visual and accessible.

       Regarding this project, I am still not sure how to present my ideas. I am going to finish this project with the theme of how to be a rule follower and what it means to be a rule follower, because we are able to  consider this idea from many perspectives, and each perspective will have its own persuasive power. My main purpose is to let you know that not all of the time we need to follow the rules that are set, and that often everyone is different or has limited ability to follow the rules. I will probably start with a picture to explain what the rules are, and this picture will be mainly in black and white, because it will make the presentation feel more serious in a way and will make people more involved in the picture. And as my personal understanding, the pictures that are full of black and white are easier to add color on which means that we are able to have our own colors on the pictures. This reply says that we are allowed to change the rule under different circumstances. Then I will use some clips from Curb Your Enthusiasm as an example to explain this idea, and I may need to use iMovie to edit the clips at this point. 

       I felt that having a visual direct connection between my ideas and the film and television work would make my ideas better understood, because on paper the essay was all about reason, some literary message. But on the project, we used examples and explanations directly with things that are easy to understand and we all know. But the disadvantage is that many times we are not strict enough when we talk about the reasoning. 

       The biggest challenge so far is that it’s a little difficult to find relevant footage, because this show has so many episodes, and every single one of them is very classic. The biggest joy of doing this project is that it allows me to revisit the series, allowing me to slowly recall each episode and perhaps come up with different feelings.

For my Remix project and I will be remixing the paper about the show Money Heist and how it exposes the negative side of capitalism. I am not sure what the remix will be as of right now.  Some options I am thinking about are making a narrated google slide presentation or making a video. The remix method I am leaning toward is the video. In the video, there will most likely be visuals such as pictures or short scenes from the show to help the audience understand the idea I am trying to convey. I think I will be using iMovie to create the video by adding pictures and short videos and using the voice-over feature to explain the argument. The video will be mainly about how the show Money Heist became a symbol of resistance and encouraged people in real life to protest against various injustices in the world today. Compared to the original paper, this remix will go less into detail because it is only a 3 to 5 minute video compared to the original paper which is 7 pages. However, I think the video will be much clearer, especially for visual learners because the video will focus less on the amount of information presented and more on explaining the details.

My biggest challenge right now figuring out how to summarize ideas from the paper into a 3 to 5 minute video since there is a lot of information from the paper. I need to figure out what parts I need to cut out and what parts should I include in order to create a remix that clearly summarizes the ideas presented in the paper. My personal motivation for tackling this project is that I believe this project can inspire people because the show focuses on the ideas of resistance and bringing a change to injustices.

For my remix project, I am planning on remixing my second paper about the underlying issues that women face that are presented in Nike’s “Dream Crazier” campaign. So far, I’m leaning more towards editing a video using iMovie just like the video we saw in class about Monsters Inc. (voiceover and photos). Or a podcast approach where I just talk about my paper. My decision honestly depends on my old laptop that breaks down constantly, but I’ll try to make do with what I’ve got. As for the argument I’ll be making, I think I’ll be sticking to one of my subtopics from my paper (body image, sexualization, beauty standards, or differences in treatment) or try to fit them all in. Nike did a good job at indirectly showing what female athletes, and even women in general, go through just to be called “crazy” by misogynists. When Nike took a fun spin on the word “crazy” it just showed how much we need to turn criticism into power which is the purpose of my video. The ideas that will be presented in my video will be more geared toward women since this advertisement was as well, but it can also be geared towards men who find themselves having these issues as well.

If I end up making a video, I think I’d analyze parts of the advertisement and connect them to a subtopic. I think it would be interesting to go through some parts of the advertisement by voicing my thoughts and also showing what Nike wanted to convey to its viewers. Hopefully, it could turn out just as good as the Monsters Inc. video we saw in class. As for the podcast, I think I would be able to convey it the same way as the video except just talking. Or, I can talk about one subtopic that I can relate to and connect it back to the advertisement. Any of these options would be fine for me to get my points across as cohesive as possible.

So far, I’m really excited about attempting to make a video on iMovie and putting all the imagery together. While it is exciting, it can also be really challenging trying to take the time out to edit and also make sure my laptop is running properly enough to make this happen. I’m also finding it to be a challenge to stick to one idea as if I want to do everything at once. I’m very undecided and on the fence so the only thing left to do is see what direction I go in and hopefully not stray from my ideas in this proposal.

I plan on presenting my Remix project of the Argumentative Research paper through a PowerPoint or google slides. My research paper utilizes the material present in a fictional series called “Blue Period” as a basis to tackle the idea of how social normalities have negatively influenced the development of modern-day adolescents. Since the existence of social norms is the main driving force of my argument, the presentation will most likely be split into two central topics: career path and education.  

I hope that I’m able to properly convey the stress and hardship the growing youth are experiencing as they embark on their turbulent path to self-discovery. To do so, I plan on incorporating a vast array of images and text from the comic book series and potentially its Netflix adaptation. The series itself contains many powerful scenes, and potentially incorporating a reenactment of such scenes from the Netflix show may leave a stronger impression on the audience as they witness the scene unfold with movement and sound. My own vocal projection will be important as well. This can also be done through added animations using the tools in PowerPoint or google slides. Whether I end up prerecording the presentation or presenting live, I should make sure that I create a concise script that fits within the time limit while also speaking in a clear and engaging manner.

The multimedia piece will change the original argumentative research paper by hopefully presenting the themes in a more concise and engaging manner. The presentation will most likely exclude a good junk of the nitty-gritty details for a more digestible and potentially enjoyable experience. Although I did use images in the paper as well, it was more so a snip bit of what would be a more emotional scene. This project will allow me to add such context through means other than text. However, presenting something in an engaging manner, whether it be the format of my presentation or my own vocal projection, is still a challenge that I need to put more thought into.