Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Dunzo

So I just got back from Jimmy's apartment for the last time for working on the project. A few friends of mine contributed some ideas for a name for the video, and this is what we chose:

"Exchange for Change"

The feeling of relief, and pride, that I feel as a result of finishing this thing is pretty indescribable. We worked hard. Hard, hard. I mean it. Both of us, without question, poured all we had into this project for the last week and maybe even before that. There were quite a few late nights, especially for Jimmy, as he is the one with the ninja editing skills and the home computer system of Final Cut. What a blessing that was! I'm so glad we didn't have to spend those late nights in a dark, cold school computer lab. Instead they were spent in Jimmy's room on his little bench chair and stool, in front of his own mac. I don't really want to know how many hours he put into editing this past weekend. I was there as much as I could be, but he worked on it even when I didn't.

I know now that we made a pretty great team. He seemed to be the one who always had creative juices flowing, had the incredible editing skills and just the fantastic artistic ideas. I was the more level-headed one :] I set the dates, the times, made sure there was always something planned and... wrote the entire script today. Just finished it about 20 minutes ago, actually. There were definitely times when I wasn't sure how great of a pair we were, but those times were a long time ago! I'm really proud of us, and I'm really proud of the Dutch Bros. coffee that kept us going today!

Oh and thank God for Jimmy's somewhat girly ways (Paramore and Vanilla Chai tea? Yes please!) Sorry, Jimmy, I just had to.

SO anyway, I thought I should next talk about how lucky we got on this project. We honestly, had no idea what we were getting into in the beginning. Like I said last night after a long night of editing, "we started out with a pretty lame idea." But things just came to us, stories popped out at us, life was breathed into the video!!! Every day and actually every minute put into it made it infinitely better. It's hard to explain, but it's the truth.

I just wanted to take the time to mention a couple people (because I haven't gotten the chance to mention them yet) to whom I am really grateful for participating and contributing to this adventure: (the following are pictures from their facebooks, taken with permission, of course)

Andrew Soltis, for being articulate and expressing himself in a way that allowed us to add depth to the interviews.








Rachel Trindle for being nervous to do a silly little 20 minute interview and for being quiet on camera (haha.)











Selah Meyer, for having the heart you have and being such a huge part of this adventure! (and she doesn't even know!)






Peter McClure, for having answers that made Jimmy and I chuckle quite a few times.









Thanks again, guys! You really have no idea...

"Sexting Gone Wrong" (How could it go right?)

Over the past few weeks, us NMC 301 students have been discussing topics related to "media gone wrong" or "how media can negatively affect a user."

What I, and probably a lot of others in the class, found the most interesting was the hour or so we spent talking about sexting. Pam showed us a compelling MTV news documentary that showed the downsides of being irresponsible with texts- picture texts to be more specific.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1631891/20100212/story.jhtml

Put lightly, I was in awe of the personal stories revealed on the documentary. There was a pretty disheartening account of a young guy who made a poor decision one night during a fight with his girlfriend, and ended up with a charge of distribution of child pornography that will last him decades. That was tough to hear about. I think due to the video, I developed my own opinion on the current laws and punishments used for social media crimes. They are not perfect. They need to be changed to fit the crimes better, but that's for a different day and a different time.

What really got me about the documentary was the level of sympathy shown for the main female "victim" of sexting gone wrong. I wondered if I was supposed to be feeling sorry for her.

So she and her friends took an inappropriate picture of her, sent it to her ex-boyfriend and were surprised to find out within the next few days that the picture had been sent to half the school. (What a good example of how quickly news travels via new media- even among high schoolers.)

First of all, duh.

I understand she was in high school at the time, and that high school is a time for bad judgement calls. But honestly, I don't think that's a remotely good excuse. Just because brains are "molding" and "developing" during that stage in life doesn't mean there's an excuse for such behavior, let alone such behavior without consequence. Even as a sixth grader I could have informed this girl of the negative consequences that would follow her decision to create a distasteful and exposing image of herself in a medium without limits.

Yup, I said it. Texting is a medium without limits.

As shown in this prime example, once one person has a text that contains any personal information/imagery of you, you better hope that person is your true friend because it is not hard to choose the "add recipients" option on the cellphone screen.

If a high school girl (I believe a junior?) doesn't know that a naked picture of herself will make it into the wrong hands (possibly dozens of them) then she clearly had some learning to do. She ran into plenty of trouble afterwards, no doubt. Trouble with the law, trouble with school officials, trouble at home with her parents, and last but definitely not least trouble with current/future romantic relationships.

The excuses of this girl and all the other girls and boys who are "victims" of sexting gone wrong are useless. It doesn't matter if you were vulnerable, angry, confused or unaware. There is no excuse for putting oneself in that situation and not expecting the consequences.

I may sound a little harsh. As a New Media major, I may have a little advantage as far as knowing what is possible with any type of social media technology. But sometimes, these things are just common sense. We can try to blame it on the education system, we can try to blame it on poor parenting (which in many cases may very well be the root of the problem) but in the end, the education system and parents are not the ones going to jail.