1.

• attached course outcomes page
• summarized the outcomes in his own words (intro. page)
• explicitly states how he met the course outcomes for each of his papers

2.

• provides examples from his papers
• sometimes uses outside text from readings
• uses peer and teacher reviews

3.

• consistent site design
• uses evidence to prove his point
• academic tone
• addresses the audience of his 131 peers

4

• use theme more effectively
• expand on ideas
• define words the audience isn’t likely to know

5.

• consistently support our ideas with evidence
• consistent/noticeable theme
• describe how outcomes were met

6. We would give this portfolio a 3.7 because it supports it’s claim and has few weaknesses!

For my first major paper, I will research the importance of what the narrator is saying, how it is being said, and how the subtitles play into that notion. This matters because what is being said and how it is said by the voice-over narrator is crucial to the setting and mood of the film yet what happens when the audience is not able to understand the voice-over narration because of a language barrier? Researching how the subtitles correlate with the sounds, in the movie, and the effect of what and how the voice-narrator says, will give us a better insight into the importance of sounds and narration in film.

My new sound script is geared towards the non-French speaking audience because I want to see how the subtitles affect their notion of the film. I will take into consideration Erik Davis’ Acoustic Cyberspace talk delivered at the Xchange conference in Riga, Latvia. Davis states that, “Acoustic space is capable of simultaneity, superimposition, and nonlinearity, but above all, it resonates…Where visual space emphasizes linearity, acoustic space emphasizes simultaneity – the possibility that many events that occur in the same zone of space-time. In such a scheme, a subject – a person, maybe – organizes space by synthesizing a variety of different events, points, images, and sources of information into a kind of organic totality.” However, the use of subtitles complicates this matter in my sound-script. Are subtitles a mode of visual or audio space? Visually, if one was to watch a film without visuals, then the subtitles would not be seen meaning that the subtitles are a means of visual space. However, without the sound the subtitles are able to evoke some sort of “sound” through what is said.

The purpose of my sound script is to see how the subtitles affect the setting and mood of the film and to see where the lie in correlation to visual space and sound space.To play with the idea of the importance of the voice-over narrator and subtitles, I have decided to switch the voice-over narrator to that of a French female. In the original sound-script, the voice-over narrator evokes and image of a fairytale bedtime story through this soothing, grandfatherly-like voice. I am interested in how this feeling of a fairytale, bedtime story will be affected when the narrator is switched to that of a young female. I have also decided to use a French narrator because it gives me a chance to play with the effects of the subtitles on the audience. I’m worried about writing a sound script that will be able to demonstrate the idea that subtitles are able to evoke “sound” through context.

Alcoff attempts to differentiate between what is acceptable and what is not when speaking for others.  She claims that speaking about a group is different from speaking for a group when she says,“Thus I would maintain that if the practice of speaking for others is problematic, so too must be the practice of speaking about others.This is partly the case because of what has been called the “crisis of representation.” For in both the practice of speaking for as well as the practice of speaking about others, I am engaging in the act of representing the other’s needs, goals, situation, and in fact, who they are, based on my own situated interpretation. In post-structuralist terms, I am participating in the construction of their subject-positions rather than simply discovering their true selves.”   However, this leads me to wonder where do you draw the line between speaking for others and speaking about others?  Doesn’t a representative of a group contradict this statement?  Alcoff claims that speaking for others is knowing and discovering the subject matter at hand while speaking about others is the speaker’s way of interpreting the group based on the speaker’s situation.   Many groups have representatives speak on their behalf.  In these situations, the representative is speaking for others yet the title of a representative seems to employ the position of speaking about others. 

“As my practices are made possible by events spatially far away from my body so too my own practices make possible or impossible practices of others. The declaration that I “speak only for myself” has the sole effect of allowing me to avoid responsibility and accountability for my effects on others; it cannot literally erase those effects.”  

This quote made me realize that when speaking for or about another group, I will have some influence on the way others perceive that group.  As with doing service work at the Boys and Girls Club, what we say about the Boys and Girls club will surely have an effect and influence others’ perceptions of the Club.  Therefore, we should consider what we say about the Boys and Girls Club carefully and take responsibility for those outcomes.  As a student, we will have to write about and eventually make a PSA representing the Boys and Girls Club which brings to light Alcoff’s claim that speaking for others often time raises problematic issues.  Alcoff mentions these issues when she says “The recognition that there is a problem in speaking for others has followed from the widespread acceptance of two claims. First, there has been a growing awareness that where one speaks from affects both the meaning and truth of what one says, and thus that one cannot assume an ability to transcend her location… The second claim holds that not only is location epistemically salient, but certain privileged locations are discursively dangerous. In particular, the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged persons has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or re-enforcing the oppression of the group spoken for”.  For our future assignments, it should be in our best interest to represent the Boys and Girls Club with the best ability we can.   According to Alcoff’s claims, we should go about our work by getting to know the people we work with at the Boys and Girls and understand their feelings and thoughts.  By doing so, as a service learner we will have a better understanding of their position.   

To pay interest on (a debt).

“A group like this could not have developed unless a mood in the United States had supported it – the belief that any true American must share God’s blessings with his poorer fellow men. The idea that every American has something to give, and at all times may, can and should give it, explains why it occurred to students that they could help Mexican peasants ‘develop’ by spending a few months in their village” -Ivan Illich, To Hell with Good Intentions

This quote appears near the beginning of Ivan Illich’s To Hell with Good Intentions address to the Conference on Inter-American Student Projects in Cuernavaca, Mexico (1968). Illich uses this quote to initiate his oposal of international service work. Illich believes that because of the “American way of life,” Americans feel the need to do volunteer in poorer international countries. Almost as if providing service to these countries was their “manifest destiny”; because they are superior, they must help those below them…

            Both of Kozloff’s pieces were very interesting and complimented one another.  The first piece, the introduction of Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Film, defined Voice-over-narration while the second piece, A Defense-and history-of Voice over Narration, discussed the controversy of voice over narration in cinema. 

notes: 

•  Voice over narration formally defined as “oral statements, conveying any portion of a narrative, spoken by an unseen speaker situated in a space and time other than that simultaneously being presented by the images on screen”
• narrators are usually: 1st person or 3rd person
• VON creates intimacy.  Personal Tone, historical information, and gives people who normally don’t have a voice, a voice (i.e. 1940’s women) 
• art vs. media; film=visual art
• insultin: telling=laziness and/or condescension

In Kozloff’s A Defense-and history of voice over narration, she demonstrates the various effects of Voice over Narration (VON) in the cinema world.  Some, like Spike Jonze, even go as far as to criticize the use of VON in film.  In Jonze’s Adaptation, a character attends a screenwriting lecture where Robert McKee, a real-life figure criticizes VON by saying, “And God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That’s flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character”.  Some see VONs as degrading, as they “tell” rather “show” the audience giving the narrator condescending persona.   While others object to VONs because they believe that film is a visual art and that the addition of media (i.e. voice over sounds) detracts from the art of film as Kozloff notes, “What makes film distinct and special, these theorists argue, is its capacity to convey information nonverbally—through mise-en-scène, editing, camera movement, POV, facial expression or pantomime”.  They want to separate the various forms of art, seeing each form as a threat to the others, “From the beginning, film aficionados have felt the need to defend cinema as an art and to do so by setting it apart from other media, especially theater and literature”.  People want to set defined lines between the various forms of art to keep each form true.  By adding VON’s to film, critics believe that the visual display of the films are tampered and biased by the narrators and limit the audience’s perspectives.

I think that Kozloff feels the need to defend voice over narrations because others refuse to do so and more importantly, she sees the importance of VONs where others do not as she states, “Many have issued pronouncements against voice-over, and few have murmured in its defense. Yet voice-over narration remains an integral part of moviemaking—so common that we often overlook its contribution and ignore its development”.  Kozoloff acknowledges the controversy with VON in the film industry and takes her reader through the negative and positive outlooks of using VON.  She tries to persuade her readers by taking a more “neutral” standpoint, stating why some critics refuse to accept VON while others believe VONs are crucial to the film industry.

            I have actually seen most of the movies Kozoloff mentions in her writings and like she said, “Voice-over narration has been a major element of cinema since the thirties; it is so very common that it probably passes the average moviegoer unnoticed” I too failed to realize the element of voice over narration in these movies.  I’m sure that while watching movies I acknowledge that there is someone, not in the visual, speaking.  The usual narrative structures “Once upon a time” and “So the story begins”, etc. are phrases that I subconsciously note as voice-overs but usually dismiss during the movies.   Considering our next assignment, I am leaning towards Amelie or American Beauty because I am familiar with these two films.