Raw Shock: A Study of Cultural Conformity

My video is finally finished. I feel that it has reached a state that I am comfortable with calling done, so that it can be digested by my viewers. I still have a lot of unused footage that I may expand into a larger project in the future. I plan to keep working on it, but I do feel satisfied in having something that feels complete to communicate my message. My message is something that has changed over time, but it is something that I think still meets my goals in a satisfactory manner. At first, I imagined that my video would end up being a sort of true-to-life story from a personal perspective in my ambition to pass on some of the experiences I have had for the benefit of others in a humorous, American Movie sort of way. Instead, my finished project turned out to be a tighter, more honed and brief video with less direct narrative value than originally planned. It relies more on suggestion, dialogue, use of symbols, and personal relationship. There is also significantly less humor that made it into the final cut than I imagined. Instead, there are more personal, inside jokes and incidental humor that have translated into the video's development. I do not think that these qualities are bad, as they do seem to have been necessary for a strong and more direct development of content. My video now feels more like an honest portrayal of a period in my life and a reflection of this transitional state as a person. After showing it in public for the first time at Lawrence University's New Media Showcase the other night, I have found more comfort and reassurance in my final video than I expected. I was given a great deal of positive feedback without any real negative criticism, which whether good or bad is a first for me. This has made me feel more confident in my abilities to navigate mixed media projects and it has shown me the value of what I have actually done. It is easy to overlook some of the significance of a project while working towards completion, but having shown my video and rested on this incarnation of my story for a while, I have been able to see more value in my own work. My video has also become a tool and a statement for my analysis and ability to cope with these events and circumstances in my life. They help me look more closely and examine the issues that have affected me most in the process of re-Americanizing. There were certain challenges in presenting a narrative that dwells on a lot of past events and changes that were largely internal and not on video to share with the viewer. I was uncertain as to how my handling of these topics would really work out, but towards the end of editing everything began to fit in a synergistic fashion and the response of viewers has shown me that I was affective in communicating my ideas to them without sacrificing the humorous or realistic aspects of my content. I hope that this video also has the ability to reach others and enable them to relate the issues I have been grappling with to their own situations, so that they can deal with their own circumstances better or at least look at things from a different point of view. I hope that in seeing the construct that I present, others will continue to question some of the topics of cultural identity, adaptation, and personal opinion that I have raised.

IHRTLUHC
Jordan Severson

Abigail Disney: a preacher of peace

I have a few thoughts after seeing/hearing Abigail Disney speak at convocation. In some ways I am a bit surprised at the aim of her lecture. I did expect that there would be a bit more of her perspective of producing Pray the Devil Back to Hell from the perspective of her making the movie, but that did not seem to be very high on her list. All the same I felt like I could relate to a lot of what she said in a way that surprised me. I found some parallels in her motives and my own reasons to make a video. I have a lot of respect for her decision to chronicle a movement and all the actions of the women in Ligeria even though they were being ignored or seen as relatively unimportant by politicians and media alike. It is that sort of view that makes me distrust or at least have little respect for the media as an entity for legitimate and relevant information. There were several phrases, sort of one-liners, that stuck out to me as being very effective. Whether they were quotes or her own words, I think they were carefully selected, like she described as something simple, yet powerful that will stick with you. I think these helped to provide a brief concept or idea in a way that makes one recondsider their own flawed perceptions based on the events and experiences that took place in Ligeria. Some examples include:
"Is war fate? or just failure of imaginating"
"Masculinity is used as the primary means of coercion"
"Those constantly relegated to the margins will eventually have skills that are useful in the page's center"
"war is a failure to see equality of all people"
and of course, "peace is a process, not an event"
All these are simple phrases that can be paired with the interviews that she had with crimelords and activists, and even one's own thoughts to realize that issues we feel are solidified, not only in our minds but in the world can actually be seen and understood from a different perspective. This concept is one that has opened my own mind and I agreed as soon as she made mention of spending some time abroad to see how the American perspective is limited. Having recently done so, I realized the validity of her point immediately and I think this is one of the reasons that drove me to explore some of the similar concepts of trying to show the difference between cultural perspectives and approaches to the same problems in life. I think that she could not be more right to show that American priorities tend to be consistently askew in some areas, and we generally seem to have a more distant response to powerful events than other cultures. Though she used her documentary and interviews to show people how change is possible and screened her movie in a multitude of countries to spread the message of Liberia's accomplishment, I think that my method will be relying on the insertion of some humorous anecdotes to help people in their mental gymnastics when considering new ideas. A good dose of humor like the one below, can be pretty strong in drawing an audience into the frame of mind you want them to experience without resistance or resentment and also without the need for an obsequious viewer. I think that her most powerful impact on me may have came from the idea of her screenings. She described a sense of her own satisfaction in being able to see the various responses and reactions to her video and the immediate effect it can have on the viewer: what will we do here, today to take action in our community? I think this must be most fulfilling to see this sort of result yielded from your own creation. It makes me think that I can hope for a similar satisfaction on a smaller scale if I complete my video and screen it with different audiences.

IHRTLUHC
Jordan Severson