Katie did a good job of clearly explaining the main theme. Katie described the main theme of this film to be the importance of a good strategy in presidential politics. She explained that the documentary focuses on the Bush – Kerry presidential election during 2004. In particular, the film explores the importance of Ohio as a swing state in the election. Katie filmed her video in one take and only paused to glance at her notes – kudos. I could clearly understand Katie and she seemed very well prepared. Katie was well informed on the contents of the film. She was also especially confident in the way she was able to share her own views on the importance of a good strategy in politics. Katie provided many interesting facts throughout her discussion. Interestingly, the two points that sounded to me as the most important had more to do with the candidates’ strategies and less to do with the content of their positions. This first is groundwork. Katie explained that the Bush Campaign was many months ahead of the Kerry campaign in getting the campaign workers out on the ground in the key states. The second major point that Katie explained was the importance of image. Bush was successful in convincing the public that he was a regular guy while Kerry was portrayed as an elitist. Katie used the example of Kerry trying to play football and eat at fast food restaurants to prove that he was middle class. Unfortunately, Kerry’s windsurfing caused regular Ohioans to fail to identify with him. Some strange facts that made Bush look like a regular American were that he was a recovering alcoholic, lived on a ranch in Texas and, even though he went to Harvard and Yale, he got bad grades. The film did sound interesting. I liked the way Katie explained the variety of people that she would recommend see this documentary. For example, Katie explained that this film had a lot of great information concerning good election strategy and that she thought it showed that Bush was not an idiot, which was a surprise to Katie. One of the strengths that Katie noted was that the filmmakers did not seem to have a bias. While the film portrayed Bush in a more favorable light, this seemed to have more to do with his campaign strategy and less to do with whether the filmmakers actually thought he had better policies. The main weakness that Katie noted was there was too much information pushed at the viewer without enough time or background to understand the filmmakers’ points. Katie seemed very excited about the information that she learned from watching the film. She genuinely seemed surprised at some of the information that this film uncovered for her. It really made me want to watch the film. What I gleaned from her review of the film is that there are many details that build to winning an election. Katie indicated that the filmmakers pointed to several areas that Kerry could have changed that might have allowed him to win. Finally, I really like Katie’s thumbs up at the end her review.
The main theme of the documentary So Goes the Nation was about the 2004 presidential election and the key state of Ohio. The two candidates were Bush running for the Republicans for a second term and Carey for the Democrats. Katie did a very good job in making this theme very clear right at the beginning of her video review. I thought her pacing could have been better throughout the video. I felt her speaking was choppy. She would pause for a few seconds and then talk fast. This forced me to have to stop the video a rewind a few times to hear what she said. However, her volume was spot on. She spoke at the perfect level for the area that she filmed the video in. Her volume was also very consistent. I did not have to change the volume level throughout the whole video. Katie seemed very prepared. Her notes and speech were very thorough. Although, I feel she did not seem that confident because of the choppiness of her speaking. On the other hand, because her speech was so knowledgeable, she did show a level of confidence. One thing I learned that I thought was very interesting was learning about the strategies of the two candidates. I did not know that it was possible for someone to campaign for president without utilizing negative campaigning, but Carey did this successfully enough to earn his party’s nomination. It was very surprising for me to hear that people were still trying to maintain a sense of dignity and hold back during a modern election. Something else that I thought was interesting was that the people actually responded more positively to the negative campaigning that they did to the candidate who did not use this. I would have thought, with all of the animosity from the people towards things such as push polling and negative campaigns, this was not a favorable campaign strategy to use. However, because of the outcome of the election, it is shown that these things actually do work. I was shocked that this gave the people the impression that Bush was stronger. One weakness that I learned that this document had was that many questions were left unanswered. One huge question that was left unanswered was what Carey actually did to get his votes. It seemed that the documentary mainly focused on Bush’s campaign plans, and did not go into depth enough about Carey’s campaign strategies. Because the documentary was about the strategy necessary to win a swing state, it seems necessary that both strategies would have been equally showcased. A strength that this documentary had was the way in which Bush’s strategy was presented. It seems to me that every detail was described in the way Bush won. I learned that a successful campaign strategy is far more important than whether or not the person is a better candidate or not. While I learned this in an analysis we did earlier during the school year, having a real, modern example in which this worked was helpful to understanding how this actually works. A stylistic point that I really liked about her video was the distance she was from the camera. It was not too close, but not too far away. This documentary seems very interesting, and I would love to watch it some day.
Katie did a good job of clearly explaining the main theme. Katie described the main theme of this film to be the importance of a good strategy in presidential politics. She explained that the documentary focuses on the Bush – Kerry presidential election during 2004. In particular, the film explores the importance of Ohio as a swing state in the election. Katie filmed her video in one take and only paused to glance at her notes – kudos. I could clearly understand Katie and she seemed very well prepared. Katie was well informed on the contents of the film. She was also especially confident in the way she was able to share her own views on the importance of a good strategy in politics. Katie provided many interesting facts throughout her discussion. Interestingly, the two points that sounded to me as the most important had more to do with the candidates’ strategies and less to do with the content of their positions. This first is groundwork. Katie explained that the Bush Campaign was many months ahead of the Kerry campaign in getting the campaign workers out on the ground in the key states. The second major point that Katie explained was the importance of image. Bush was successful in convincing the public that he was a regular guy while Kerry was portrayed as an elitist. Katie used the example of Kerry trying to play football and eat at fast food restaurants to prove that he was middle class. Unfortunately, Kerry’s windsurfing caused regular Ohioans to fail to identify with him. Some strange facts that made Bush look like a regular American were that he was a recovering alcoholic, lived on a ranch in Texas and, even though he went to Harvard and Yale, he got bad grades. The film did sound interesting. I liked the way Katie explained the variety of people that she would recommend see this documentary. For example, Katie explained that this film had a lot of great information concerning good election strategy and that she thought it showed that Bush was not an idiot, which was a surprise to Katie. One of the strengths that Katie noted was that the filmmakers did not seem to have a bias. While the film portrayed Bush in a more favorable light, this seemed to have more to do with his campaign strategy and less to do with whether the filmmakers actually thought he had better policies. The main weakness that Katie noted was there was too much information pushed at the viewer without enough time or background to understand the filmmakers’ points. Katie seemed very excited about the information that she learned from watching the film. She genuinely seemed surprised at some of the information that this film uncovered for her. It really made me want to watch the film. What I gleaned from her review of the film is that there are many details that build to winning an election. Katie indicated that the filmmakers pointed to several areas that Kerry could have changed that might have allowed him to win. Finally, I really like Katie’s thumbs up at the end her review.
ReplyDeleteThe main theme of the documentary So Goes the Nation was about the 2004 presidential election and the key state of Ohio. The two candidates were Bush running for the Republicans for a second term and Carey for the Democrats. Katie did a very good job in making this theme very clear right at the beginning of her video review. I thought her pacing could have been better throughout the video. I felt her speaking was choppy. She would pause for a few seconds and then talk fast. This forced me to have to stop the video a rewind a few times to hear what she said. However, her volume was spot on. She spoke at the perfect level for the area that she filmed the video in. Her volume was also very consistent. I did not have to change the volume level throughout the whole video. Katie seemed very prepared. Her notes and speech were very thorough. Although, I feel she did not seem that confident because of the choppiness of her speaking. On the other hand, because her speech was so knowledgeable, she did show a level of confidence. One thing I learned that I thought was very interesting was learning about the strategies of the two candidates. I did not know that it was possible for someone to campaign for president without utilizing negative campaigning, but Carey did this successfully enough to earn his party’s nomination. It was very surprising for me to hear that people were still trying to maintain a sense of dignity and hold back during a modern election. Something else that I thought was interesting was that the people actually responded more positively to the negative campaigning that they did to the candidate who did not use this. I would have thought, with all of the animosity from the people towards things such as push polling and negative campaigns, this was not a favorable campaign strategy to use. However, because of the outcome of the election, it is shown that these things actually do work. I was shocked that this gave the people the impression that Bush was stronger. One weakness that I learned that this document had was that many questions were left unanswered. One huge question that was left unanswered was what Carey actually did to get his votes. It seemed that the documentary mainly focused on Bush’s campaign plans, and did not go into depth enough about Carey’s campaign strategies. Because the documentary was about the strategy necessary to win a swing state, it seems necessary that both strategies would have been equally showcased. A strength that this documentary had was the way in which Bush’s strategy was presented. It seems to me that every detail was described in the way Bush won. I learned that a successful campaign strategy is far more important than whether or not the person is a better candidate or not. While I learned this in an analysis we did earlier during the school year, having a real, modern example in which this worked was helpful to understanding how this actually works. A stylistic point that I really liked about her video was the distance she was from the camera. It was not too close, but not too far away. This documentary seems very interesting, and I would love to watch it some day.
ReplyDelete