Douoguih Final Video Essay

This piece is part of an ongoing interpretation of cell phones and social media that is being addressed more and more heavily in today’s world. I find the topic of phone usage extremely relevant to everyone as around 90% of the entire world population has access to mobile phones. The health implications, physical and mental, of phone addiction are only started to be researched now, and the long term damage to both our brains and our bodies are completely unknown. Studies are now being conducted to uncover just how excessive exposure affects the human brain and what we might need to do to stop it.

I use media with a range of about 80 years, so basically post-industrial period of the phone until now. I used a lot of sources that depict older versions of mobile phones or land lines to create a nostalgic feel throughout the piece. The whole point of my argument is to take a step back, and I think using films that portray a former version of what we understand know as something we can’t live without is important to creating the narrative that we can live without them once again (or at least live with them to a smaller degree).

Many people are under the impression that we cannot operate in a modern world without phones, and I wanted to add to the conversation by showing people just how much phone time we actually have in our everyday lives, and how large the amount of time we spend on our phones starts to become over time. I think one of the problems with the way this information is presented in other contexts is the idea that there is someone or something behind the phone that is evil and insidious. This starts to lead people astray from the facts and fall into Rabbit Holes. I didn’t want to blame any one company for causing the problems that are presented in the video because I think what’s more important is to focus on the self and the personal experience because that’s how phones interact with people too. Showing people that there is more to life than consumption, that maybe there is a world out there in which everyone can maximize their potential, is a lot more enticing than the overused argument of Facebook or some other platform being bad.

Douoguih Final Response Essay

In this piece I attack clickbait and polarizing media. I specifically focus on BlackRock as a company and how it gets demonized, attacked and protested by a lot of the outside world for its investments and influence. First, I play part of the original clip by Moon, a clickbait creator on Youtube, to show just how exaggerated some of the claims are about BlackRock. I then explain the depth of the clickbait and eventually explain the actual purpose and functionality of BlackRock.

Part of the reason I chose to work on this piece was because I worked at BlackRock and had seen first hand what people think, whether it was protesters outside the New York office, my own friends ridiculing the place I worked or seeing clickbait titles like this spread throughout the internet. While I felt like I was providing a service and actually trying to push for positive change, it seemed as though everyone else had differing opinions.

While the example of BlackRock is one of many, I think it is important to show how, given certain contexts, people are able to be so easily convinced about what is true. Sources like these take advantage of one of the most crucial aspects of creating a cohesive and functional society: The Truth. And, they turn it into something that makes us question our own world to the point of our own demise. It is important to be able to generate our own opinions and avoid a hive mindset that comes with exposure to media like this, as well as to be well informed and educated on all matters to prevent further disruption of societal structures.

n this piece I try to morph two stories of struggle into one. The challenge for me was using a more modern film and an older film, combining them into one that tried to transcend time boundaries of the films. While these characters are unrelated and do not necessarily have similar stories, the two main characters do have to fight both with themselves and others to try and keep who they are intact. I also tried to make the timeline somewhat similar, creating a narrative that wasn’t necessarily there, using the story of an abandoned child in There Will Be Blood and the story of a deceased man in D.O.A. to generate the idea that there is somehow a relation between the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbHlJMVWh7o

In this deformation I try to emphasize a struggle and intensity that exists in the movie D.O.A. while also portraying a love that is not really there. The frantic opening shows the inner turmoil facing the character, while the scenes of the two main characters falling in love mark a desperate attempt to reconnect, but this is not necessarily what happens in the movie. The woman is desperate, yes, but the man is in fact a womanizer, but this scene makes them appear to be a very deep and romantic love. The vocal is from arrival and is a woman talking to/about her growing child. This helped to develop a stronger more dramatic image of love throughout the piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qomr8YxTsI0

In this Epigraph I try to again put an emphasis on a love story that existed in the movie a bit differently than how I portrayed it. The music, I Fall in Love Too Easily by Chet Baker, however, tells a different story if you listen closely. The song based on the title actually does represent how the main character acts throughout the film as a womanizer, so the barely noticeable tones of melancholy but also of a Casanova in the lyrics show that maybe this love isn’t as true as my essay makes it seem.

P.S. I had trouble with the embed codes on some of these and tried to get help, but we couldn’t figure it all out. Please let me know if you need access to either of the two documents that did not upload properly (they are also on the course drive under Douoguih Deformation 1 and Douoguih Videographic Epigraph).