Briefly explains your new sound-script (e.g., its purpose, audience, and narrative style).

The purpose of my new sound script is basically to make Cher sound smarter, less priveleged, and less of a Valley girl, to connect more with the original story, and see what the effect is. The audience is everyone, really, but mostly my 121 peers and Jentery. I am going to retain a female speaker, probably myself, and try to speak in a more intelligent manner.

States your research question (from Response Paper 1.4).

My question for my research paper is going to be “How is Cher’s personality conveyed through the visuals versus the narration in Clueless?”

Expresses the main claim of your first major paper and why you believe the claim is reasonable and risky.

 I believe that although the visuals show that she is rich, pretty, popular, and likes to shop, it shows little about her actual personality. Her voice brings her real character to life, especially with the insights into her thoughts we are given through the voice over. Her voice very distinctly tells us she is rich, white, priveleged, self absorbed, and not terribly bright, but sweet and compassionate.My claim is risky, because it implies that Cher’s personality is far more dependent on her voice than her appearance– that to change her voice would be to change who she is, but is also reasonable because I have evidence that Cher’s voice was more researched than her appearance, and thus meant to be more important.

Explains the stakes of your argument and why your claim and new sound-script are both important/Articulates how your new sound-script serves to augment, critique, or complicate your chosen film or TV show/ Provides one artifact (e.g., a journal article, academic text, or selection from the course material) that you will be using in support of your new sound-script.

For my new sound script, I’m going to make her sound more mature, intelligent, and aware, through better vocabulary, removing the whine in her voice, and removing its inherent tone of privelege and stereotypical Valley girl. Of course, in this sound script, I run the risk of making Cher into a less lovable character, which would not make the audience happy, but may get the message of do-gooding across more easily. As Koslov says “voice over narration has been a major element of narration since the thirties; so very common that it actually passes the average moviegoer unnoticed”. This is a very valid point, particularly when the voice over is very… expected? is that the word? Like it is in Clueless. I want the audience to notice the voice over, for it tells more of what kind of person Cher is, disregarding the Valley girl and all that, I mean that she really does want to do good, and genueinely cares about people, instead of passing over her and disregarding her acts as misguided and/or selfish.

Raises any specific questions you have about your claim, your analysis, or your research. Of course, your questions can be about any nervousness or frustration you are having. Remember: both nervousness and frustration are a part of the writing process

I’m kind of sketchy on what my social issue really is… something to do with privelege, but what specifically? I also don’t really know how to make my paper as complex as it needs to be… I think part of my paper could tie into privelege and service, as that is what the movie is about, Cher trying to provide others with service, but… I just don’t know.

Wow, that was intense.

I agree with the general premise of Alcoff’s article; that speaking for someone, if one is not a part of that group, can have dangerous consequences and is generally looked down upon. I think she brought up some good points; that if speaking for an oppressed group is bad, should I, as a white american, not do it? But then, does that go against whatever percieved societal duty I have to help those who are oppressed? She also raises the very valid question- can we ever seperate speaking about from speaking for? should we?

The discussion of audience is an important one, especially for this class as it relates to our service learning. We need to be very aware, both when we are at the clubs, talking to the kids, and when we are doing our projects, of who our audience is, and how much they will take what we say as truth, and what kind of credibility we have in their eyes. This ties into another point of Alcoffs, that we can never speak solely for ourselves, that our words will always be affecting someone. To be aware of our audience is to be more aware of the effect our words have, even when we think we are speaking only for ourselves.

I must dispute her claim that “in many situations when a woman speaks the presumption is against her”. I think that in today’s society, womens’ opinions are often as respected as men’s, especially when it comes to the kinds of things Alcoff is talking about, namely, speaking for the oppressed.

 My definition of service is #5, “to supply a person with something”

Illich says that “next to money and guns, the third largest North American Export is the U.S. idealist”. Illich seems to be saying that Americans think that they are supplying Latin Americans with a dream to strive for, motivation and inspiration, while all they are really providing is hopelessness and a pipe dream that many know they can never achieve. Thus, what they think is being supplied and what actually is are two different things, and the US volunteers are not really doing anyone a service at all.

I think this is a good example of my definition; although “to supply a person with something” has more material implications, I think that one can just as well supply people with ideas or goals.

Ryan and Colleen

We agree that the man at the end of the clips, who worked for the Coalition for the Homeless, would make an ideal narrator for “Dark Days”,  because  he sounds very well educated, and knows how to articulate his thoughts. He provides a  good contrast to the bias of the Amtrak official, and helps advocate the cause of the residents. His voice would be even, possibly with slight bitter undertones, arguing logically for the residents.

He could speak during transitions between scenes, and/or possibly in the part of the scene where the man is washing himself and cleaning his floor. He would be speaking a year or two after the facts, from his office at the coalition.

after the amtrak man’s speech/while the man is washing:

” Obviously, the residents of the tunnels know how to care for themselves, especially those who have lived there for several years. If their environments were as the amtrak official described, they would have fallen ill long ago”

After the conversation between the man and the woman in the tunnels:

“With homeless shelters becoming places of crime, the residents are being forced to seek options which are simply not there.”

The narrator would be serving the residents, in order to appeal to the community to raise awareness of their plight, which so many others suffer unnoticed.

I realized I forgot to actually address the prompt…. and don’t know how to edit my posts

As I stated that Koslov stated, people object to voice over because they think it is “sloppy”, or “not real film art”. They have very rigid ideas about what film should be– that it should “[connect] Image A via editing, camera or lens movement with Image B, and the effect is meanings C, D, and E expressed without explanation.”

Koslov defends it because she feels that it is a very underrated, yet popular and important, aspect of film, and does so through the ways I listed in my previous post.

I’ve seen some movies with voice over, and watched some shows– clueless (which I am going to do for my project), fight club, About a Boy, and the wonder years. I never noticed the voice over before, but now that I think about it I think that it added to my experience and understanding.

I started watching Clueless again the other day, and already I am noticing that the narration is giving me insights into Cher’s personality that I would not gain from the visuals alone.

The first article I read, “A defense- and history- of voice over narration”, brought up some very good points, considerably better than those of her opposition, which seem to consist of “it’s sloppy” or “it’s not real art”.  She lists many movies that make good use of voice over– and not bad movies, either. Mainstream, popular movies, like Clueless, A clockwork Orange, and Fight Club. She points out that voice over can convey some things better than the movie alone, as with the post-war documentaries, and womens’ films of the 1940s. She points out, as well, that some films are so complicated that voice over is essential to even understanding what is going on, and, as a rebuttal to the “telling is manipulative and coercive” argument, she points out that showing is often just as manipulative, as the director puts a lot of energy into using the pictures to make people see what he wants them to. In my opinion, one of the most important points she brought up was that voice over gives us insight into characters that we would not otherwise fully understand. She makes three final points– that voice over can make a film more poetic, more intimate, and, in spite of what many people say, actually more conplex, as it adds another dimension or layer to the film experience.

The next article probably should have been read first, as it breaks down voice over narration into its essential parts and explains them. She begins her other article, “Invisible Storytellers” with something very important– an explicit definition of voice over. She continues with a definition of narration, broken down into 6 kinds of sentences, and delves into some things; asides, soliloquys, that can sometimes be confused with voice over, and distinctly separates them. She admits that it can be misused sometimes, but then proceeds to list many films in which voice over has added greatly to her experience.

I completely agree with all of her points, especially about intimacy and character development. Often, in movies, we see the characters actions, but voice over narration adds another level: how they think about their actions. Whether or not they struggle with them, alternative motives, etc.

We’ve discussed sound a lot in class, and I have stated I personally beleive that it is a lot more powerful than visuals, a belief that I maintain here. The insight voice over narration gives us into the characters is priceless, and every movie I have ever seen with voice over was tastefully done, and came out enhanced by it.