Abby Ward

In this exercise, I read the last few pages of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree over a sequence from Paul Thomas Anderson’s film There Will be Blood. I chose to read this excerpt because the themes were present throughout TWBB. The main character from TWBB, Daniel Plainview, is constantly guilty of being greedy and taking more and more from the earth and communities all for his own gain, which reminded me of the messages from The Giving Tree. Although the audio quality was not great (before I discovered the magic of using a real microphone!!), I think this video combined with the voiceover was really effective at showing, not telling, my understanding of TWBB.

For my desktop documentary, I looked into the question “What is method acting?”. Still focusing on TWBB, I answered this question using the google search bar, several articles while also providing examples from the movie. I think using desktop documentary was effective for this topic because of the question I was asking. After this exercise, I began to use different desktop documentary-esque practices for other assignments, like typing and screen recording youtube or google. I was happy with how this exercise turned out, but in the future, I would definitely speed up typing since it felt slow.

For the last exercise, I chose my deformation. This was probably my favorite exercise from the semester — it was fun to manipulate TWBB and impose my own meaning onto it. For instance, I did this through music (I thought the Succession soundtrack was oddly fitting and matched the vibe really well) and “deep frying” (to sort of portray how evil he was in my head). I feel like I would see a video like this on instagram — there wasn’t really a theme, but it was enteratining edit about Daniel Plainview specifically. And again, using Succession music added a whole new meaning to TWBB, but matched the eeriness.

For my videographic response essay, I chose to talk about the meme-ification of Breaking Bad. It’s a personal, anecdotal video essay, as I’m talking about my own experience with the show and how my interpretation of the main character, Walter White, evolved. Specifically, how it evolved due to meme culture. I talk about Breaking Bad only this video, but I think it opens up a bigger conversation about how meme culture changes our perception of media — sometimes things that aren’t supposed to be funny can be redefined, which I think is really interesting. I chose a funny and casual tone for this video essay mainly because the topic was memes and I think anything else would have been unfitting. I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while, and I think a video response essay was the perfect format because it’s a very reactive video, and I think it worked really well to start with a video essay that had a serious tone, and then use juxtaposition with memes. Juxtaposition was a crucial device for this project — especially for the last segment of the video when I compare the video essay’s interpretation of certain scenes with mine, now, after consuming so many memes. Some things I’m proud of regarding this video: 1) I love the tone of this video, 2)I think my points are concise and 3) The editing style and devices were consistent (which is something I sometimes struggle with).

My final video essay was on parenthood in Magnolia. This video has a much different tone, which I think was appropriate as it deals with a heavier topic. I decided on this topic because after watching Magnolia, I was searching for a video essay that would connect all of the things I just saw, and explain the “randomness” of the movie. I attempted to fill that gap with this video — I wanted to illustrate that Paul Thomas Anderson’s choice to have nine loosely related protagonists was crucial to the themes of this movie — it reinforced that the things they have in common, which were similar stories of abusive parents, are unfortunately a shared experience by many that connects them all in a way. This was a harder video to execute — my points felt all over the place at certain moments, and it was hard to say things concisely and connect all of it at the end. I think this was because of how all over the place the actual film was. I think having a more rigid structure, like a written essay, would have helped me be more concise and make it less rant-y. Another thing I struggled with was making a video essay that anyone could watch — even if they hadn’t seen the movie. This was hard because of how many characters and plot lines there were, so I’m interested to see if people who haven’t seen it are able to follow my essay. Some things I’m proud of: 1) I think the introduction is really compelling, 2) The music was really well fitting and used well, and 3) I think my analysis of Walt Whitman’s poem added a lot and gave the viewer a lens to watch the film from in the future.