Pyon Pyon Warp-Kun

Dear Followers,

PROCESS ANALYSIS:

PURPOSE/CLAIMS:


For my visual essay, I decided to do a piece on the armed forces of the United States of America. This year’s debate resolution revolved around US global military forces and installations, and I have learned a great deal about the armed forces these past few months. As such, I began to notice the recruiting commercials each respective branch of the US armed forces (Army, Navy, Air Force) made use of. In the United States, recruitment levels are at an all time low. Students are drawn away from the military because of a lack of educational and monetary incentives for enlistment, and our National Guard and troop levels are beginning to pay the price in order for us to maintain global commitments.


Therefore, the main purpose of my visual essay is recruitment. The main claim supporting this purpose is that service in the US armed forces is desirable. This is supported through visual images which equate military service with values like honor, distinction, power, and patriotism. These are values which are especially revered in American society and which help give military service a good name after so many years of condemnation by the hands of peace activists and pacifists. By returning the images of glory which once represented this nation’s men and women in uniform, I am seeking to evoke a sense of patriotism in the viewer which will lead them to recruit.


IMAGES:


For my images, I heavily edited several US armed forces recruitment commercials. I divided each of these into video clips between 3 and 6 seconds in length and arranged them in an appropriate order. Many of the video clips, coming from individual branches of the US armed forces, were focused on displaying more of the training and academic aspect of the military. Instead of using these clips, I focused on action shots, from war scenes to men and women conducting military operations. I chose to use moving images over frozen images in order to emphasize the action which my visual essay seeks to engage. Action is essential to the emotion and purpose of this piece. Frozen clips are more suited to pieces which seek to portray delicate, sensitive, and quiet emotion.


One of the most powerful images shown is that of teamwork and camaraderie. Images of squadrons and military regiments filled with men and women of every shape and size gives this argument widespread appeal. By emphasizing military functions from technicians to pilots to medics and by overall capturing the diversity between each of the three military branches, I seek to emphasize the cohesiveness of the military through diversity, a theme which is present in the characteristic of our very nation. Images of soldiers helping one another up, commanders giving orders to ready recruits, and of collective teams working together bring out the best of the military structure of order and rank. Explosions coupled with exercise courses help portray the power and masculinity of the US armed forces.


Something more subtle about the images is the color scheme. Because of the geographical makeup of the locations that each branch of the US armed forces operates on, color schemes were used to represent the Army, Navy, and Air Force throughout the film. Many people view the US armed forces as a monolithic whole, but with my visual essay I wish to demonstrate the individuality of each branch which helps form a collective whole. The Army shots are usually yellow and brown to represent the land, the Navy shots are usually black and dark blue to represent the sea, and the Air Force shots are usually white and sky blue to represent the sky. I was fortunate to find individual commercials with common color themes to help with this aspect.


RHETORIC/APPEALS:


My visual essay makes heavy use of repetition, bombarding the viewer with images of military teamwork and honor to drive home to claim that military service is desirable. This is done through the use of several similar images to represent the individual branches. For instance, helicopters and tanks are used to represent the Army, aircraft carriers and small boats are used to represent the Navy, and predator drones and jets are used to represent the Air Force. These images are repeated over and over again, making each branch more memorable as well as the visual essay as a whole.


Climactic order, usually found in speeches, makes an appearance here in a more subtle form. The images move from that of individuals operating single machines, to groups operating larger machines, and finally of whole units, standing in uniform and in rank. This ordering emphasizes the hierarchy found within the military structure of the US armed forces, emphasizing the obey and command functions of the military. The music enhances this order, by increasing with tempo as the order becomes more complex and massive. This helps bring out the emotion of each section as well.


Finally, my essay makes heavy use of appeals to emotion and values. Every scenes seeks to invoke emotion from the viewer, from the honor and camaraderie that is represented in the images of fellow soldiers to the power represented in the images of explosions to the respect represented in the closing images of soldiers returning home. Everything about my visual essay is loaded with emotion in order to bypass the more undesirable aspects of war. We live in a generation that is more aware of war than any before with the advent of televised warfare. As such, the public has developed a hatred of war when subject to graphic images. Therefore, arguments which invoke emotion are especially important to convince the viewer to bypass these associations of war for a more favorable one.


AUDIENCE:


Unfortunately, the US armed forces have, does, and will continue to appeal to mainly young males. Militarism has adopted the characteristics of a patriarchal society as troops have been conditioned for warfare through a practice in the arts of domination. As such, a hypermasculine character has developed in the process. While more and more females have joined the military in the modern era, the masculine images of power shown in my visual essay will tend to appeal more to males than females due to a natural tendency for males to constantly seek to prove themselves, which historically has been accomplished through warfare.


While this may be the case, this does not mean that the military can be portrayed as a solely masculine activity. Just like professional military recruitment organizations, I made use of images which show both men and women of varying ethnic background to make the argument have more widespread appeal. With women training alongside men, women are convinced that the military is a space for females as well while men are not demasculinized because of the presence of explosions and demonstrations of military power. By balancing these two aspects of the visual essay, I can maintain a win-win situation for both genders.


ORGANIZATION/MUSIC:


The organization of the clips was based heavily on the music choice. The song I chose is called “Prologue” by Martin O’Donnell. Many of you may recognize this song from the Halo videogame series. The song is in a minor key, giving the quiet and loud sections a chilling feeling. Beginning slowly, “Prologue” quickly speeds up as the percussion section suddenly joins in. Drums have constantly been associated with war, representing tribal rituals of past warfare and the explosions of modern warfare. They help add energy to the faster sections of the song, and give enhance the feeling of power and dominance that militarism represents. Choir singers accompany the main string and horn sections, enhancing the empty feeling of the quiet sections and adding energy to the loud sections.


I would have never been happy with myself if I hadn’t used the whole song in my visual essay. In terms of organization, the music choice worked perfectly with the images and emotions I wanted to portray because of the song’s impeccable timing. Whenever there was a clash of symbols, I placed images of explosions or of dirty flying across the screen to enhance these sounds. I aimed to place transitions from one set of images to another at the major transitions within the song, moving from passive images to action shots in the beginning, moving from action shots to training shots in the middle, and moving from training shots to passive shots at the end. This organization followed the natural ups and downs of “Prologue,” which starts and ends slow and gives the visual essay closure.


More specifically, in terms of organization, my visual essay makes use of several “image sets” which correspond with the music. The very beginning contains preparatory images, as members of the armed forces get prepared for war just as the song is preparing for a crescendo. Here I make use of powerful statements in order to develop the mood for the next section, ending with a comment on the power of the military before suddenly switching to images of war and military operations as the music picks up. When the music switches to an intermissionary section following the refrain, I used images of military training which represent growth as the music grows in volume. Finally, I end with images of soldiers being congratulated as they return home to enhance to diminuendo.


SOURCES:
The following videos were downloaded using http://keepvid.com/:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ysBQ5OxFLk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnR8CDygeAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YFUfuglke0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlzdZqSVbJ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDXK1dFY_Pc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUrf6Qg4T4E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq-ZVIZJaI8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DvCxSGo-Lo


The following images were downloaded using Google Images:
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2003/photorelease/q4/R071720.jpg
http://shop.theexecutivedesktopfurniturecompany.com/images/1228939692429-675787592.jpg


The following songs were downloaded using http://www.video2mp3.net/:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjvo0SPAOiQ&feature=related


All of the above was edited and compiled in Windows Live Movie Maker 2010.


Maru Maru Change-Kun,

Noel