Keeneland Final Cut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eI3Osm1lfI

Reflection Essay

The Project: The documentary project was one of the more challenging, but worthwhile, assignments I've ever worked on. There were many different challenging aspects to the project, from deciding what the documentary would be about at the beginning, to figuring out when to meet and work together on it. Overall, though, I think the biggest struggle was trying to narrow down all of our various different options and settle on one focused topic about Keeneland. It took us a while and was very hard to narrow it down to one main issue or topic out of so many different potential routes. I am most proud of the way our group worked together and got everything done as a team. Nothing was done without consulting the entire group first and no one was ever left out of the decision making process; everyone contributed. Overall, we are very proud of our work as a unit and the end product we were able to create. There are a couple aspects I would change about the documentary if I could. There were a few more shots that I had in mind for the film that we couldn't get because of time constraints and unavailability. I was personally responsible for a few different things. Overall, the Keeneland documentary was my idea so I tried to take on a natural leadership role and try to organize meetings and individual roles. I was also partly responsible for going to Keeneland and filming and interviewing. I also edited the film and audio and put them together. Overall, I feel like I contributed my fair share to the group and I tried to take on the role as the leader and keep everyone focused and motivated. Our group message helped to keep a good mood and attitude among the group and our regular meetings helped keep us focused and on track with the project. The Class: Some of the readings we did our blog posts on were very insightful and definitely had an impact on my view of the world and society. Some of them forced me to evaluate my own opinions and beliefs and see how they differed from the way the real world actually operates. Overall, I had a pretty decent knowledge of Keeneland and its history, but the project helped me gain quite a bit of information about it, as interviewing some of the people who worked there gave us a lot of insight into the horse park. I think the class helped me with my public speaking overall. I am usually a pretty confident speaker anyway, but taking this class and receiving feedback and tips for my public speaking definitely helped me improve. I undoubtedly preferred doing speeches rather than writing essays. I think the class did a good job of emphasizing my strengths as a student and communicator. My confidence in my speaking abilities showed in the class, and my leadership and teamwork abilities showed in the documentary project. Overall, it was a laid back class and that also played to my strengths, as I work better in those kinds of situations. Overall, I thought this class was a blast and it's honestly hard for me to name an element or aspect that I didn't like about it. I guess the blogs didn't feel like they were as important to the class or my grade as I was doing them, or looking back on them. Maybe more focus on the societal topics of the class would make it more engaging and make the blog posts seem more important. Overall though, I liked pretty much everything about this class.

Keeneland First Cut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojb_5HPEjjg

11/18/14 Media Depot Selfie

Music Video

The music video I chose was Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder." The video is made up of mostly medium shots of Jay-Z just doing stuff. He's in the studio recording and later he's in the street with a lot of people just rapping. The longest shot comes towards the end when it turns into heat vision. This is mostly medium shots of him again, and the heat vision lasts for about 50 seconds as it shows him rapping in the street and shows many of the people around him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz_-VaTHpc8

Annotated Bibliography - Keeneland group

Annotated Bibliography

Jimmy Le, Noah Gawthorp, Megan Quillen, Daniel Turman, Daniel Oakley

• ·      Interview(s) with jockey(s).

We will try to interview a jockey and ask him about what horse racing means to him. We would like to hear the importance that horses and horse racing have to him and his opinion on Keeneland. Our documentary hopes to capture the sentiment and passion of Keeneland, so hearing a jockey tell us what it means to him to race horses and come to this particular track would help in portraying that.

• ·      Interview(s) with member(s) of racing office and media team.

Along with jockeys, we will try to interview members of the communications and media team and racing offices. We will ask them similar questions about their opinions and feelings towards Keeneland, as well as what aspects of it drew them to working there. Again, getting such information from people who work within would be helpful and could give us an insight into what Keeneland means. Hearing why someone loved Keeneland so much that they decided to work there could be a good addition to our documentary.

• ·      Interviews with commoners

We will also try to get some interviews with regular people who are simply paying a visit to the tracks. Like the other interviews we will conduct, we will be asking about the emotions and sentiment, if any, that people attach with a visit to Keeneland. Ideally, we would like to get an interview with an older person who has been visiting Keeneland for years and holds a lot of value in an annual trip there. Again, an insight into the everyday person’s life to see why they come to Keeneland would be good for our film.

• ·      Old racing clips from Keeneland

We could potentially use clips of past races and events at Keeneland to incorporate in our film.  It could show the history and pageantry of the track and give viewers an idea of how long Keeneland has been running and how much history has taken place at this track.

The Last Supper

            The death penalty is an extremely controversial and widely discussed topic in the United States. There are those who support it and those who oppose it. The authors of “The Last Meal Project” and “No Seconds” both wanted to chime in on the issue with their takes. However, both authors did so in a very unique and eye-opening way. Both authors used pictures of the last meal of various death row inmates to voice their opinions about the death penalty in the U.S. When viewing either of these sites, you will see plenty of visuals that are used to voice their opinions.

            Both of these visual projects are incredibly powerful. “The Last Meal Project” gives you a picture of the inmate’s face along with what they wanted for their last meal. However, every few pictures is also a fact about the death penalty in the United States, whether it’s how much it’s costing the people, how often it’s used, and other various pieces of information. This piece is effective in asking the question, “Is the death penalty really worth it?” By showing the faces of each inmate, as well as some facts such as “[it] is being reconsidered in 11 states because of its high cost to the state and its ineffectiveness in preventing crime,” we begin to question the validity of the death penalty, and consider the humanity of the people being murdered.

            “No Seconds” makes its case in a similar way, showing detailed images of the last meals of various death row inmates. The images in this project are much more detailed and up close, and you actually get kind of hungry looking at them. This project strikes you when you realize that these people being sentenced to the death penalty aren’t too different from us; they’re still humans. They like food the same way we do, and they enjoy a delicious meal just as much as we do. These detailed images of their last meals gives us a sense and reminds us that even though they have committed awful crimes, they’re still humans, after all.

            Both of the visual projects are presented very well and the authors make very good use of visual representations to express the human qualities of the inmates being sentenced to death. They are reminders to us that these people are still human, regardless of what deeds they’ve done. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; these visual projects beg the question, “How much is a last meal worth?”