Introduction The topic chosen for this documentary film is "the history of the ridges." The Ridges is located in the United States of America, Athens States particularly in Ohio near the Ohio University. The ridges operated as a mental hospital formerly known as Athens Lunatic Asylum, which operated from 1874 to1993. It was constructed shortly after the civil wars to serve the large number of civil war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The facility was considered favorable and a quiet environment suitable for insane patients' treatment. There existed many rooms in the hospital and other recreational activities like boating, picnics, farming took place in the institution. Also there was cemetery where bodies not claimed …show more content…
He further states that socially related matters are controversial and therefore qualify to be subjects of documentary film (Nichols 2010). The ridges history in our case is a social topic and therefore controversial especially in Athens Ohio. Its acts as a reminder of the hospital that once existed in the area and the activities that led to its closure. Many people both the public in United States of America, Ohio university students and citizens in other nations will be able to understand the history behind the vacated premises today and also why some of the facilities are being used by Ohio University. People until now doubt some stories and facts about the Ridges, and that makes everyone seeks for the truth about such historical place. The reason behind doubting some information is that many rumors are spreading around from different people who have different beliefs and background. By interviewing individuals and taking pictures of the ruins representing the current condition of the renowned hospital in form of a documentary, the documentary film may be of great assistance to the Ohio university medical students specializing in mental health and criminology students in seeing the institution in another perception. Therefore, we believe that addressing the history of the ridges to be the best topic to cover in our documentary …show more content…
Since the target group holds different social beliefs and values it's therefore important that one choose an appropriate method to convey his message without offending anyone. The method of persuasion chosen should also be able to persuade the audience and not alter the facts. There are several reasons that make a documentary film persuasive and influential hence making it the most appropriate method of representing the information. First, currently the documentary film is gaining popularity from its audience at a higher rate than any other method of representation. With the development in mass media and communication technology people prefer watching documentaries streaming them from them from the internet to their mobile phones or the televisions. Research proves that the number of people watching documentaries from the year 2008 to 2016 has increased from 70.9 million to 93.3 million in the United States of America (Scarborough, 2017). There is a few documentary films that talks about the Ridges, that is why it will be very effective to inform people about the history of this asylum by making a documentary so they can watch it. Secondly, documentary films are convincing, realistic and motivating since it incorporates other language techniques that makes it more interesting to follow. These persuasive language techniques include narrative, poetic, rhetoric, logic
Propaganda is mainly used to persuade your audience in thinking and believing in a certain way; the way that you want them to think. In the film of
For historians, the colonial period holds many mysteries. In Written in Bone, Sally Walker tells the story of America's earliest settlers in an interesting way, by studying human remains and bones. Sally walker works alongside historians as they uncover the secrets of colonial era gravesites. Written in Bone covers the entire process, from excavating human remains to studying the burial methods and how scientists, historians and archeologists go about this. Readers will be amazed by how much detail these processes uncover, such as gender, race, diets and the lifestyles of many different people. The reader will began to see the colonial era in a new way.
The main point of this documentary is a strong one. Strong Island is a documentary describing the effects of a crime going without justice to a family that had no other option but to move on. The documentary goes into the lives of the family of William Ford’s family and friends before and after his murder.
This report aims to make light of certain elements of documentary making that are perhaps more susceptible to influence on the director’s part, and once again explore the effect of these decisions on the audience’s reaction to the information presented.
While Mexican Americans were considered white by law, the documentary A Class Apart sheds light on the struggles and eventual triumph of Mexican Americans in the their journey for racial equality within the United States. Following the Mexican War, Mexican Americans were subjected to a Jim Crow style of discrimination. Despite retaining U.S. citizenship, Mexican Americans were treated as second class citizens. Frustrated by social, political, and economic disenfranchisement, Mexican Americans sought the assistance of the United States Supreme Court, in what would become a landmark case, to secure the full rights afforded to them as United States citizens.
The oil and gas industry has been met with increasing opposition over the years, with fracking and water pollution being some of the most controversial subjects alongside others like pollution, global warming, and claims of corruption. While some anti-frack claims seem like viable arguments, many are the product of misconceptions, an uninformed public. One of the greatest examples of this is Josh Fox’s 2010 documentary GasLand, whose most memorable scene showed a man in Fort Lupton, Colorado, lighting his faucet on fire, blaming it on hydraulic fracturing. After the film was released, among numerous errors it contained, it was found that the water well contained naturally occurring biogenic gas unrelated to oil and gas activity (Energy In Depth).
1)What are the norms in the Bridgewater State Hospital during the filming of this documentary? What social values do you think are represented by these norms?
The film Declining by Degrees effectively argues its claim that all is not right in higher education. They do this by interviewing countless professors and students that still attend college or that have recently graduated or dropped out. Their use of personal experiences, statistics, and expert opinions helps build their credibility and emotional appeal for the viewers of the documentary. The main audience for this documentary being anyone who cares about college, parents, students, and even the professors and staff at colleges in the United States.
Permanently closed is a documentary that investigated the mysteries surrounding the institution Letchworth Village. This now abandoned lot, has had a lot of attention in the past years. In the recent years it was featured on the Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures, an episode of the TV series of Elementary, and was one of the main inspirations for season 2 of American Horror Story: Asylum. Most famously, Letchworth was featured in Geraldo Rivera’s expose “The Last Disgrace” in 1972. The shows focused on Letchworth’s reputation for experimenting on its patients as well as mass mistreatment of patients. Many believe that there are many unsettled souls still haunting the grounds in Rockland County. Permanently closed will show audiences the entire story behind this institution and its chilling legacy that continues to captivate audiences today.
The science fiction film Looper is innovative and unique, drawing upon genre conventions in a compelling way. Although the use of time travel in science fiction films is anything but original, the ionic detachment and visceral loathing gives this film an advanced, innovative plot.
The Thin Red Line (1998) is a WWII movie drama based on the Guadalcanal Battle. On July 6, 1942 the Japanese began developing an airfield on Guadalcanal which is one of the largest Soloman islands. This threatened vital allied supply lines as well as communication routes for the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. The Soloman islands geographic location and size was an advantage for the overthrow of World War II. "Position argumented by military power translates into strategic advantage for a site's holder" (Holmes, Carpenter, Leung, White & McLaughlin, (n.d.)). With the greatest threat to the U.S.'s allied countries South East Asia and Australia the U.S. forces jumped into action and invaded the Japanese on July 7, 1942. There was no question, the construction of the air field needed to be shut down although with limited soldiers, weapons, and supplies the battle would be a war without mercy. Lasting a little more than six months the U.S. conclusively over took the Japanese. This unfortunately did not
In his documentary Classified X, Martin Van Peebles describes three areas where African-Americans could be receive some sanctuary from the racism that pervaded almost all Hollywood films. These three places were: the Hollywood version of an all-Black film, the church, and entertainment. Black culture and music is prominent in mainstream society, but the people behind this culture don’t always receive recognition and respect for their creations. Mainstream White pop culture excitedly consumes and appropriates Black culture, but disrespects the source.
I chose to analyze Despicable Me, an animated film geared towards a younger audience, because I was interested in examining underlying theories and messages that this film would be relaying to its viewers. Often times, when watching animated films, children are not aware of these messages, as they are absorbed by the characters, special effects, and humor. But as we have learned throughout this semester, our brains are subconsciously primed by the various surroundings we are exposed to. Since we also studied the impacts of entertainment, such as television and video games, on children, I wanted to see how a popular children’s film might also affect them.
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is a Steven Spielberg science fiction drama film, which conveys the story of a younger generation robot, David, who yearns for his human mother’s love. David’s character stimulates the mind-body question. What is the connection between our “minds” and our bodies?
One of the integral things that must be addressed when making a film is the ethics involved. Ethics are a constant issue that have to be carefully considered when filmmaking. This difficult decision-making is highly prevalent in that of documentaries, because of the difficulties associated in filming ‘real people’ or “social actors, (Nichols, 2001).” More importantly, the issues faced by a filmmaker differ between each of the documentary modes. Each particular documentary mode poses different formal choices that must be made in order to operate in an ethical fashion. Two films that have been made both display examples of how ethics must be considered when embarking on a documentary are Etre at Avoir [To Be and to Have], (2001) and Capturing the Friedmans (2003). These films have been made in different documentary modes, highlighting that there is not one mode which is easier or has fewer ethical issues associated with it. Additionally, what must be considered is how these style choices in these different modes affect the power relationships between the filmmaker, the subject and its audience, (Nichols, 2001).