WeaverL+Responses

3/9/12 Tim Smith Presentation Summary

 * Visual Rhetoric and Film**

Tim started the presentation off with a screen shot of the film "Yes Man" in order to get us thinking about the different ploys used to make the photograph effective. For instance, the angle of the shot, the gender stereotypes presented in their positions etc. He then showed us one of the first moving pictures, which was of Niagara Falls. He also clarified the meaning of 'montage', which is different from what we all think of, and is more or less when images are paired together in order to give a new meaning. He showed us examples of this with the old man smiling, then cutting to a scene of a baby, and then how different that message was compared to when the old man smiled with the scene of a woman in a bikini. The message totally changes. He also showed us a montage of images of butchering cows and war. He mentioned that surrealism is the theme of collages. He discussed L'age d'or (The Golden Age) in which the use of sound underminded the image, which is also surrealist images. He also showed us a Dadaist film, in which he called "nonsensical", and I have to agree. He concluded the presentation with stating that people perceive messages from commercials, but they don't understand the cleverly thought out tactics used within those commercials to make them feel that way about something.

Week 2 - Glossary Response

A belief or view that is (or was) commonly accepted to be wise and true in a group of like-minded people, despite that fact that these views often resisted change by the way of thinking that if the proposed change were good, it would already exist. -Example: Before women's sufferage, the 'common sense' belief was that women were too irrational to vote. -Source: Rhetoric, A User's Guide by Jogn D. Ramage, pg 19-20 (Lorin Weaver)
 * Common sense:**