TOW #28 Blackfish

      There was a SeaWorld commercial on TV today and after having recently watched Blackfish I couldn't help but to feel a wave of emotions as the screen flashed with images of the different exhibits. Gabriela Cowperthwaite, the director of the film, felt motivated to make this documentary after hearing about the unclear death of one of the trainers that involved the killer whale Tilikum. The documentary compiles the life story of Tilikum beginning with his abduction from the wild and all the way through his attack of the trainer and his life that followed. The presentation of Tilikum including strongly suggested material that points towards his involvement in other trainer deaths is directed towards making the audience aware that SeaWorld is providing an environment that is unfit for these animals to live, and suggest that the captivity leads to mental illness. The team behind this documentary had people who feel compassion towards animals as a general audience in mind, for if someone doesn't care enough about the animals than there would be no way to make the impact that Tilikum's story has on those who are willing to listen to the story of this Orca whale.
     The common expression "you have to see it to believe it" applies perfectly with a strategy that was applied throughout the film. The whole issue id that whenever an incident happens that results in trainer injury SeaWorld shifts the blame to human error, rather than a whale attacking its own trainer. The documentary combated the accusations that the only attacks that happen are because of human error with footage from actual attacks. The documentary team could have had people on to interview talking about the attacks for hours, but it would never be as effective as showing the real life footage. In the one piece of footage that stood out to me, a male trainer was in the water preforming a rehearsed routine when one of the whales sprang out of the water and collapsed onto him. watching the video myself there was no question that the whale had jumped on that angle on purpose, which meant that the whale intentionally tried to hurt the trainer. It is hard to even describe why I'm so certain that it was an intentional jump for the actual video feed just provides the viewer to be able to use their own analysis skill to understand what is happening in the situation. The video footage allowed for the documentary crew to have evidence that SeaWorld could not deny, it left it up to the viewer to interpret what was going on in the video.
       The sources that a documentary chooses to rely on are essential towards making their points valid. In Blackfish the main people who were being interviewed were previous trainers are SeaWorld. Instead of having a man in a white lab coat spewing out statistics about Seaworld the use of actual relatable people made the whole documentary more emotionally appealing. Everyone that was interviewed was so personally connected to the situations, there were even interviews with the trainer who specifically was Tilikum's trainer, which resulted in the audience feeling like they really had an inside view of how SeaWorld was being run. Some of the trainers that were interviewed actually knew the trainer who was killed by Tilikum, Dawn Branchea. All of those interviewed told the same story that she was the most professional one there who always cares about safety and protocols and the very notion that she made such a silly, fatal mistake is disrespectful to her memory. Hearing the accounts from people with first hand knowledge added to the emotional impact of the documentary as well as raise the credibility of the film.

TOW #20 Reflection

       It's strange to look back at the TOW's that I have written this year. With each one I flash back to when I wrote it, and what my mindset was while writing. Reading through my first post of the school year I put a lot of effort into it. I remember spending a large amount of time looking for the perfect article to examine and ending up choosing an op-ed piece about Syria in hopes that the controversial topic would bring up the sophistication of my writing, it didn't. I went for a formulaic approach to writing of my TOW including words such as "the purpose was..." and "for example", but it was a good starting point. In the second semester of school I started to improve, I actually included quote in my TOW about the landing of China's Jade Rabbit, but I still clung to the easy formula of writing a TOW.  The third marking period in retrospect was the most difficult for me, I was feeling the pressure to do well and there were points throughout the marking period where I just gave up on things, the aspect that suffered the most were my TOW posts. Examining my 14th TOW which fell in the third marking period I can tell that I put in minimal effort. There are simple spelling and grammatical errors throughout that I could have easily fixed if I had just read through it carefully enough. While the level of writing had improved in my third marking period writing there is no excuse for my rushed work. The fourth marking period I picked up a little spirit, and with the actual AP test looming over my head I felt that I should put a greater effort into my writings. In my 25th TOW post I used a piece form an actual exam to analyze, and while I didn't put 100% of my effort into it I felt it was adequate. It is interesting because even though I didn't put nearly as much effort into it as my first TWO it was a better post, which I believe speaks immensely for my personal growth as a writer. I have mixed feelings towards the TOW post to be honest, I feel if I had put in my best effort throughout the year it would have been better for me, but unfortunately with the stress of this year and small immediate benefits of the TOW posts I never put in the proper work level. There is always room for improvement and looking at my last TOW post I still need to work on not reverting back to the formalistic way of writing. I wouldn't say I mastered anything this year just because there is so much more room for improvement, but I have reached a point where I can write solid analysis without trying to hard, which for me is pretty awesome. Overall I believe the TOW's were an essential part of getting through APELC.

TOW #26 Godzilla Movie Trailer

     The movie industry spends millions of dollars each year to market their movies. One of the key components in marketing a movie is a movie trailer, that can showcase what the movie is all about. Godzilla is was a franchise first introduced in Japan and is now being turned into a new movie coming out this

summer. Godzilla is movie that is often viewed by the public as something to laugh at and joke about.  The new movie is attempting to market Godzilla as a serious, heart pounding drama. The movie trailer for Godzilla uses timing and sound effects to convince the audience to some see the movie Godzilla. From the beginning of the trailer there are scenes of devastation all right after each other, but the audience only sees glimpses of what is causing all of the trouble. It is not until the final scene of the trailer that audience gets a full look at Godzilla followed by the big bold letters that spell out Godzilla. It was effective to do this because if they had shown the big Godzilla monster right away many would have been turned off due to their past experiences with Godzilla, but after the audience has been drawn in with the action scenes it builds up the credibility and suspense of the movie. The audience also has to build up suspense through the use of sound effects, or in this case the lack of effects. Throughout the trailer the audience hear clips of a high pitched screaming noise, also there are the sounds of devastation such as planes crashing, guns firing and people screaming. It is with these sounds that the audience can feel as if they are in the movie themselves. The sound sets the whole serious mood of the movie, which only helps people wan to go see it more. By the end of the trailer it easy to see who the movie is setting as the audience there are only action scenes without much substance. No one is going to watch this trailer and walk into the movie theater and expect to watch a light-hearted film, but everyone knows they will get non-stop action. Overall the trailer did solid job of showing what this movie is all about. Anyone who is an action movie watcher at heart will go see this movie.