Summary
1) The theme I am remixing is my MRULE (multi-racial unity living experience) community. I did a collaboration of the many experiences I have enjoyed through my year of membership while also incorporating what it really means to be a member of my community.
2) To remix my paper I created a movie, using iMovie maker for Apple. I found this to be the best way to bring life to my papers topics.
3) The purpose of my remix that I focused on was to create a recruitment piece for my community. I wanted to make it short and sweet along with easily relatable and relevant to what MRULE offers to everyone.
Making Rhetoric More Visible
In contemplating how to take on this project and best portray MRULE I thought of the core values that my community upholds; service, discussions, community building trips and socials. All of these things are about doing and the best way I could come up with to show action was through video. Rhetoric in my community is best described through the voice and so I thought that combining many voices and ideas together was what I was going to do.
My audience is all who attend, plan to attend, and those who are affiliated with Michigan State University. I wanted my video to be a great highlight of what MRULE is all about. This is the best audience to veer my video towards because of the locality of my community and the hope of expanding the programs membership. I also wanted those who are affiliated with MSU to grasp the importance of cultural programs on campus and to show how they bring people together on a deeper level.
My purpose for this video was to have all who watch it get a taste of what the members of MRULE see as their community. I know that MRULE is not an easy group to explain in a few short words. The best way to understand is to just experience it and join. I wanted to portray an actual sense of membership in my video. I think that my purpose is pretty clear throughout my video; without me directly saying everything. I believe that the photos, video clips, and music I used help to bring a sense of clarity to my community. All of these methods supported my purpose in a healthy way to bring life and enjoyment to my remix.
Reasoning
To best elaborate on the choices I made while producing my video I would like to break it apart by the different methods that I used. In creating this movie I used an array of pictures, video clips, song clips, and different transitional backgrounds. I find that a unique mix of these methods portrayed the best feel for my remix project.
The first form that I started as my base was the background layout. On the cool program of iMovie I was able to choose an initial base. This gave my project a continuous theme. I chose the bulletin board look to help express my ‘recruitment’ and advertisement feel as one. The transitions between my photos and videos tied the cohesive mixture of the aspects of MRULE I was trying to capture. The song lengths and the method of fading in and out also added to the transitional work.
The pictures I chose to represent MRULE were mostly from my personal experiences along with those displayed on the group’s website. I focused on pictures that really caught the action aspects of MRULE. When I placed them in to the bulletin board layout I think that this helped show how opportunities through MRULE are open to everyone.
The video clips were from an array of different sources. I looked up YouTube videos and used the TED video from class. I thought that the video aspect helped create a voice and was a good invention piece that brought life to the photos. Being that the bulk of MRULE is involved in action, discussion, and service I wanted to portray this in little snippets throughout. I also used a few personal interviews about what MRULE means. This displayed to my audience the vast walks of life that join MRULE and how we all participate in a unique experience dependent on what we all can bring to the table.
Stylistically I feel that music makes all the difference. My song choices were mostly my personal favorites. These songs clips help unify my video by bringing an upbeat feel and flow. The lyrics to these songs have true meaning and help bring an already perceived feel to the video. The song such as “Just the Way You Are,” by Bruno Mars, is a mostly well known choice that my audience is able to relate to and is familiar with.
The Remix Process: Reflecting and Translating
The RAIDS aspect has become something that I think I do more often than not with a lot of my writings as a habitual act. I think about these aspects throughout my creating and developing process to fully develop my project.
To start off my project, mapping out and researching useful sources was the basis of my invention process. I wanted to make sure that I chose the perfect songs and videos that would bring the right light to my community. After collecting multiple creative materials the organizing process went in to full swing. I used the program iLivid that I downloaded from the Multimedia Writing site that we were provided with in class. This program helped me crop and edit the video clips that I wanted to use in my video. I was able to arrange these clips in a constructive way that benefited the style that I was using and in turn created the right delivery message. My revision process was very tedious. I probably watched my video fifty times. I watched it and analyzed all the transitions, song lengths, and audio work. This helped my video come together. I also used my sister and family as resources to watch my video and give suggestions on making some of these same decisions.
I think that rhetorical conventions in a video are very comparable to those in creating a remix. Essentially a remix is just a visual of the paper. It requires all of the same questions to be applied to it. They both have to keep the audience in mind and have to focus on a goal/purpose. I think that they both can be very powerful in describing and delivering a message.
A remix’s rhetorical conventions as I said are very comparable in the purpose but can be portrayed in obviously different ways. An original paper is a detailed explanation that can easily guide the reader to the ultimate thesis. A remix is a more creative and based specifically on perception. An audience member participating in a remix may get more or less out of it depending on a few slight stylistic choices. The interpretations of the potential viewers have to be taken into consideration to make sure the remix is successful.
In the same sense a remix can be a great alternative to gain attention for a community. Through this opportunity with our communities we are able to really show passion and love for what we do by creatively portraying our experiences. This can be a great advertisement piece for the community and more effective than a well written paper may be.
Outstanding Issues
I enjoyed creating my remix for MRULE. I had the opportunity to advance my skills in technology and movie making. I wish I had more chances to be creative in this manner throughout my other classes. I did have a slight difficulty in being that I do not personally have the iMovie program on my computer. I had to use great time management skills to complete the video when I was at home and had an accessible Apple computer.
I had a few initial issues with translating my paper into a remix format. MRULE is a very action oriented program so I wanted to make sure that I brought this across. It is definitely a unique program so writing my papers was a challenge in and of themselves. The remix brought across a few challenges in just knowing how to begin with capturing all that I had within my many papers.
The only thing that I might do differently after knowing the remix process to make my project more successful, I would have created some of my own video of the other core values in MRULE that I have experienced. This would have at least provided me with some more options when I went about creating the video. This would also have been more beneficial to my community because it would be something I could share and be more my own creation, rather than being more dependent on a collaborative mix of other sources to portray my community.
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