I hate public speaking. I hate it, because I believe that I am no good at it, and when you aren't good at something, you don't have any interest in doing it. However, it is a necessary part of life to face your fears and hopefully, overcome them.
In order to aid me in giving my 'four 'deep-dive' topics presentation, I created a succinct prompt to read whilst in front of the class. This is a technique I usually employ, as it gives me additional talking points to bring up when I am at a loss for words or to include more information for my audience.
This prompt is no more than a condensed version of all my research for Phase 1, along with some extra information not included on the screen, created to aid myself in standing up and giving my presentation to the class. It features extra stuff that was not included on the PowerPoint to mainly comply with the time constraint of seven minutes, as well as to stop the presentation from becoming overwhelmed with information.
I will admit, it's quite lackluster in comparison to my other works, but you'll have to remember that this was my first presentation in a while and I was downright terrified. If I had had more time, it would have been made to a much higher quality.
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The Four Topics of Interest:
1. The American Frontier/West
2. Fight Scenes
3. Physical Disabilities
4. Dams (Hydroelectricity)
Talking Points:
1. The American Frontier/West
The American Old West, ‘Wild West’ or American Frontier refers to the time in American history where settlers from the East and Southeast of America mass migrated west to explore undiscovered land and settle down in order to build a whole new life for themselves and their families.
Settlers included a whole manner of people including, but not limited to, farmers, ranchers, business owners,
The territorial expansion lasted from the year 1607 to 1912, with its myth lasting from 1850 to 1920. However, these dates vary slightly from each American West historian.
Oxford Dictionaries typically defines ‘Wild West’ as “The western US in a time of lawlessness in its early history. The Wild West was the last of a succession of frontiers formed as settlers moved gradually further west. The frontier was officially declared closed in 1890.”
The American Frontier is arguably the defining process of American civilisation.
The idiom of ‘Wild West’ is used to describe something that has yet to fully develop and has quite a few perceived dangers about it as a result of its underdevelopment. This idiom obviously derives from the definition of the actual American Frontier, referring to the exceptionally dangerous journey settlers would take. This journey had a very high death rate because almost everything could kill you. This included starvation, a whole host of diseases, the suns heat, dehydration, feral animals, criminals and bandits, poisonous plants, malnutrition and accidental gunshot wounds.
Romanticism and Misconception
Multiple forms of media over time has used the American West as the focus for its stories, obviously the biggest culprit being the film industry, where the Western genre was once the most reliable, popular and prolific genre of them all.
Other media includes television shows such as Bonanza and Gunsmoke, comic books, games such as Red Dead Redemption, Call of Juarez, GUN, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath.
However, the case with most of these (although not all) is that they portray the time through a romanticised lens. This stems from the definitive Western films of the 1950s where certain realistic attributes were often omitted entirely to comply mostly with audience interest and the film administrator rules of the time.
Realistic elements such as mud or trail dust on characters and blood would not be seen since the sight of blood was considered obscene for the time. Even extensive violence was toned down in these films to not lose audience and producer appeal. Characters, when shot, would tumble to the floor almost comedically with barely a scratch visible. This is why Westerns such as The Searchers and The Wild Bunch were viewed as shocking for their time, depicting characters who, when shot, would writhe on the floor and scream in pain.
Other elements were exaggerated in these films as well, such as chaos and anarchy.
2. Fight Scenes
If film and television directors want the fight scenes in their work to be authentic, they will often employ several martial arts experts or instructors.
If you pay close attention to film series such as Mission: Impossible or James Bond, certain blocks or punches from martial arts such as Judo or Karate can be seen being used.
Most well-executed fight scenes have the characters effortlessly use a martial art such as Aikido or Kung Fu, where the enemy ends up using their own strength against themselves or their allies.
When analysing good fight scenes in film or television, it is important to identify the key themes.
From analysing the ‘Church Massacre’ scene from Kingsman: The Secret Service, I have created a mind map and run-down list of all the most noticeable things within the scene, including:
· Weapons used (Hand guns, knives, wooden steaks, crucifixes, canes, crutches, cygnet ring tazer, fists, various pieces of church paraphernalia, hand grenade, chairs, books and a fire axe) Some of these are specialist and are only used by the Kingsman agent
· The amount of ‘realism’ involved (Quite to very realistic, blood toned down heavily to comply with film rating standards)
· Emotions portrayed (Just mindless violence, no real other emotions other than blind rage)
· General trivia informing researchers how the scene was made (20 stunt men, 1 week to shoot, not a continuous shot but set up to look like one)
· Martial arts being used (if any) (Some being used, unspecified, Judo (?), fist-fighting involved)
· Suspense (Everything is very quick, sporadic and fast, there isn’t much time for suspense, there is just action)
· Kinds of people involved (Congregation of the ‘hate group’, 1 sermon ‘leader’, 1 Kingsman agent, mostly people in their 40s to late 50s, some elderly with crutches, a few young people but not many seen)
· Camera angles used (Tracking shots most of the time, a few over-the-shoulder shots, one 1st person shot, the camera follows the Kingsman agent)
· Music and sound effects (‘Free Bird’ (guitar solo) by Lynyrd Skynyrd, screams of pain, slamming of bodies and weapons on the floor and into other fighters)
Fight scenes can be implemented into many films and other media, but are mostly prevalent in films such as:
Traditional Kung Fu films
Boxing films
Films about the mafia in different countries
Some other great examples include:
Opening Scene from The Matrix (1999)
Terminator 2: Judgement Day ‘Asylum Escape’
Boxing Films (Rocky, Creed, Million Dollar Baby)
Saving Private Ryan
Gangs of New York
3. Physical Disabilities
Heterochromia – When both eyes are different colours
Albinoism
Oscler-Weber-Rendu Syndrome (anemia, low blood pressure)
Born without certain limbs
Polydactyly
This is a common trope in the James Bond franchise, where almost all of the villains have physical disabilities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemolacria (Crying blood)
4. Dams (Hydroelectricity)
Dictionary definition: “a barrier constructed to hold back water and raise its level, forming a reservoir used to generate electricity or as a water supply…”
18/10/2019
End of Phase 1
Week 3: 14/10/2019 - 20/10/2019