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The Celiac Problem at Miami by Andrew Fornadel
Writer’s Reflection
This final remediation assignment has been my favorite part of this entire semester. My audience for this assignment has changed over the course of production, but ended up being tailored mainly for the nutrition and higher- up staff at Miami University, while also giving enough information to be for the whole student body of Miami. I made the argument that due to the lack of accessibility and variety in dining halls around campus, an allergy station should be opened at every dining hall on campus, as well as increasing the variety of foods at those stations to accommodate for those problems. I would summarize my project as being an effective journalism film that educated the audience on the problem and then gave research- backed ways to fix those issues. This was an effective way to present the problem, because it did so in a video that captures a lot of attention and allows for visuals, as well to present every aspect of the issue and edit it all together.
The biggest texts I looked at before my video draft were sources I should use for the video. I eventually decided that everything Miami needed to be included, as well as medical information on celiac, and also the price gap with gluten- free products. All of these would provide the best logos to the audience as well as strong pathos to make them really feel and understand the cause. Eventually due to time constraints, the part on the price comparison was cut due to the peer critique, which was really helpful.
My peers stated that the part with prices kind of took away from the dining hall argument. So, that ended up being cut, as well as small parts to save time. They were quickly trimmed and can seem very noticeable, and that’s one of my biggest flaws with this edit (but can still be found in the original edit in the description of the video and recommend for the best experience outside of the requirements for this class). I used plenty of editing tools, primarily Davinci Resolve and Adobe After Effects. Being a film student, I was able to use my skill set from those onto the main project.
In terms of rhetoric, I was very happy with how everything turned out in the end. I feel like I was able to achieve everything I set out to do. With all the people that saw it, it was apparent how much of the use of pathos affected the community. People responded how it was not only effectively done and factually based (for logos), but it was strongly resonating with them, because they felt moved that someone in the celiac community was advocating for change and standing up for these problems. Having celiac myself, I had a pretty strong ethos to build on. I feel like I went beyond the expectations for the community I was advocating for, and they would consider it to be professional.
During the peer review, one of the comments I was given was to make the background a little less distracting, which fell under multiple constraints to be able to change. First, it would have been very difficult to set up the equipment and reshoot all of the footage, as well as re-edit the entire project. The lighting wouldn’t have been able to be fixed really in any way either, making my room the best option to film in. Creatively, I feel that the setting works the best for it all. With the depth of field in play, it puts me in focus and gives an interesting enough background to not get bored watching the video, and shooting against an empty wall with little light/color control would make the video feel less professional than it is right now. But the peer review and teacher feedback really helped out and shaped the video to what it is for the final English copy.
Given more time and more funding, I would have loved to give the video more attention in the sound design, but due to time constraints and not a lot of access to many sound assets, I had to put it to the side. One of the most surprising things was that the auto-generated captions were actually perfect throughout the entire thing, and I made sure to look through the text while watching. I learned a lot from this project and mainly learned how to make a research- based journalism film for my own use. I’m using this for my creative portfolio and have actually used it to help get myself a film internship! I think this will be huge for the community, and the original edit has over 1.4k views. I’m very proud of it! This form of multimodal composing has helped this class really stand out from the rest of the other English classes I have taken. I am very thankful for this assignment, and it will continue to inspire many of my works in the future!
A Note From the Instructor – Erin Goff-Mitchell
As an instructor, I was thrilled to see Andrew become so motivated in his work with the Remediation project. It is clear that his passion for video editing shone through in the assignment. In addition to that, his ability to bring in both personal experiences and specific information regarding Miami made his work stand out. The final product closely considers how multiple media can interact together to create a meaningful and effective message.