A Vision of Students Today

 
There was palpable dread in the room after viewing Michael Wesch’s A Vision of Students Today, the short video traditionally used as a catalyst for the final Comm150 project. Dear God, we have to reproduce THAT? 

The intent behind this 2007 work was to "summariz[e] some of the most important characteristics of students — today how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime." While this idea is still relevant the class agreed that it was limiting in both creative expression and skill demonstration, was not visually interesting, and that the assignment reproduces constraints discussed in Wesch’s video by being too prescriptive and limiting. The decision to open up the assignment to any subject that touched on the course material and  demonstrated narrative development, shot planning, and editing allowed students to create work that was more personal, and far more engaging.

Opening the concept permitted students to demonstrate innovation in using the skills acquired via previous assignments. Caitlin’s use of the slowed down audio of If it Makes You Happy illustrated knowledge of manipulating sound to create a mood, and worked well in the context of her project, as did the Wizard of Oz-like transition from the black and white of her digital experience to the immersion in colour of her offline experience in nature.

Mariela, Aitana, Celina, and Asmaa’s Every Day and Dustin, Kyle, and Haley’s video effectively illustrated  how social media compels users to construct a “highlight reel” showing an enhanced or entirely false narrative of life. Statistics were smattered through Every Day to highlight the mental health impacts of social media which effectively supported the narrative. Dustin, Kyle, and Haley’s video took a more playful approach to this idea of an online keeping up with the Jones’. Both videos handily employed music to enhance their vibe.  Every Day was scored by Cinematic Orchestra’s Home. This is one of my favourite pieces of music, but it is incredibly overused in film — particularly trailers — to set an emotional expectation. Dustin, Kyle, and Hayley’s video supported the three vignettes with music that suited the individual scenes and enhanced their humour.

Humor shouldn’t be overlooked in terms of driving engagement with a work, and retention of the work, as demonstrated by Grace and Kate’s D.A.R.E spoof video. I’m going to remember the visual of a student flailing down the stairs while looking at her phone — then raising her arm for one last check while lying crumpled on the landing — longer than I will any of the stats presented in Wesch’s video. I also appreciate the parallel between digital consumption and the drug use the original D.A.R.E commercials and their ilk warned against. Both are habit forming, both have detrimental impacts on mental health, and both can necessitate leading a sort of double life.

One of the main issues raised about the Wesch video was that there was so much reading — the cards held up by the students and the text on screen require viewers to work by reading rather than observe. It’s neither effective nor visually interesting. Aylla, Maya, Angel, Brittany, and Linda’s otherwise lovely Inside the Mind of a Creative veered into this trap. Trying to provide so much information in such a short time detrimentally impacts the viewer experience. An economy of words, in this case text, would have been more impactful. The shots were so well thought out and the music so evocative of the slow and laborious process of crafting in ceramic that having so much text — and layered over the images —  took away from film. It would have been more impactful to use fewer quotes, and to perhaps split the screen so that the video was in the left two-thirds and the quotes on a solid background on the right one-third of the screen.

Ben, Bryanne, Khiri, Dan, and Keenan’s Influence of Social Media also retained much of the Wesch video. The supporting interviews in theory should have humanized the statistics but I found myself disengaging. This was partially due to audio issues — the combination of dramatic music and poor sound editing made the lower male voices hard to distinguish.

Interestingly the video that had the least visual human screen time, Will’s Streaming Awesome Memories, actually demonstrated the most real, unscripted human interaction. The warmth and camaraderie of Will’s gaming community was so apparent through the dialogue that it enlivened the game recordings that formed the bulk of the visuals. As the only video that didn’t focus on negative impact it was a totally different, and very successful, take on how students interact with digital media.

The most effective, engaging videos were the ones that strayed furthest from Wesch. Having watched the work my classmates produced I’ve gained my own vision of students today — creative, determined, individuals who can not be summed up by convenient statistics.