Exigence

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Several members of the Staff Development Program (SDP) Steering Committee at Clemson University expressed that they were in need of a current, innovative video that featured participant testimonies in order to encourage university administrators to continue to financially support the SDP. Apart of the course ENGL 8570: Digital Rhetoric(s) Across Media, my assignment was to work with a group of my peers (3 other students in the course) to produce a video that could be distributed by the SDP Steering Committee, primarily to administrators.

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Audience

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The SDP Steering Committee who were in need of the video, university administrators who determine the financial future of the SDP, and Dr. Howard, the professor of the course who would provide final consent, constituted my intended audience. Therefore, these groups of people drove the creation process for the video.

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Rhetorical Strategies

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Since the Staff Development Program is a development of the university, it was important to reflect that in the video. Therefore, we decided to utilize Clemson University official fonts and colors. Additionally, the SDP logo was featured on the title screen and on the bottom right corner of the screen throughout the participant interviews to brand the video and remind viewers that this video is indeed covering the SDP. We chose to begin the video with upbeat music so we could initially garner our viewers' attention, and we continued this musical effect throughout in order to maintain the upbeat energy as the various participants spoke about their experiences. The music established a happy and positive tone, as well as helped reinforce the positive testimonies of the participants. We also utilized several transitional tools within Premiere as instructed by Dr. Howard, such as "fade into white" and "fade in" and "fade out" to indicate a change in narrative in between participants and help viewers prepare for new information; the "fade into white" effect near the end of the video was added to convey to viewers that they should expect a bright future for the SDP.

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As Aristotle states, within rhetorical situations, the hearers are “either an observer (theoros) or a judge (krites), and (in the latter case) a judge of either past or future happenings” (48). Fully aware that our main audience was university administrators who have the power to sustain the SDP, we wanted to ensure that with every decision we made, we considered what aspects of the program they would need to see explained and visualized in order to keep funding it. In an effort to effectively persuade administrators to continue funding the program, both the Steering Committee and my group decided it would be best to make our video a series of participant interviews that highlight the benefits of the program that make it worth future funding. Additionally, in his novel Squirrel INC., Stephen Denning states that "a story can communicate a company's brand" (56). Also, "a personal story can communicate who you are" as an entity (54). We decided that a compilation of personal experiences and stories would be the best method to communicate the values and outcomes of the SDP, and therefore, show administrators how valuable the program is for various people. Denning further supports this idea when he states that effective companies spark change when "Groups possess analogous 'who we are' stories, which are less about the leader's personal experiences and attitudes and more about the joint experiences and attitudes of the people within the organization and their shared beliefs" (58). Therefore, the sections of the interviews we chose to include in the video help paint a picture of the organization as a whole.

 

Moreover, we added in a few photos of the participants' activities so as to not only let our viewers hear the benefits of the program, but also see visual proof of how the program is a beneficial entity. Denning states that "In performing the story, the storyteller relives the story and makes it fresh" as if the viewers were there at those particular, specified moments (26). Our goal was to have our audience feel as though they were a part of each participants' activities through the various photos. Collectively, the narratives, music, and photos worked together to tell a story. In Anders Fagerjord’s “Multimodal Polyphony: Analysis of a Flash Documentary,” he states that the “demonstrative devices often will harmonize with the narration, thus pointing out or revealing something that is described in language” (11). Our goal was to make the voices of the participants the spotlight of the video, let the images visually reinforce and display their statements, and allow the music to control the rhythm and mood of the overall video.

 

Furthermore, we decided to begin our video with a brief introduction into the program by one of the former chairs of the SDP, and what it essentially accomplishes, because "a traditional narrative has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The beginning of the story sets the context of the narratives" that follow it (50). We wanted to prepare our viewers for the series of participant testimonies that would follow.

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Process

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Phase 1: Consult with SDP Steering Committee & Group Members

 

The first step of this project was to meet with the Steering Committee in order to hear their expectations for the video. Afterwards, I met with my group members in order to establish goals, divide up certain tasks, and create a fluid timeline for the project.

 

Phase 2: Schedule & Conduct Interviews & Edit Interviews

 

Next, we scheduled and conducted interviews with various participants who were referred to us by members of the Steering Committee. After reviewing our interviews as a group, we met to edit them, removing unnecessary parts and saving significant sections in order to begin the video creation process. At the end of this meeting, we again divided up work and established more deadlines for each person, so we would all have time to contribute to the creation of the video. My major task for this video project was the editing portion; after some of my group members interviewed the participants, I selected which clips from each participant’s interview would be included in the video, inserted transitions in between them all, inserted the SDP logo so it would be displayed throughout the video (later mentioned), and aided in removing background noises. I also created the title slide and the ending credits slide (later mentioned).

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Phase 3: Present First Draft of Video

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