Thought this was pretty cool!

Scene Depiction

Group meetings have been used throughout the Inter-fraternal community since the first Greek letter organization was founded in 1776, the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Similar to today, these meetings are very important in the fraternity to discuss and solve many issues. This is the main reason for my choice of the scene being during a meeting. I also chose Delta Sigma Phi entirely on my past experience rushing and already being familiar with the active brothers of the fraternity. Even though I’m not an actual brother of the fraternity, they treat me as family, allowing me to hangout at the house, and also attend their events. During the fall semester as a pledge I was not considered a brother, consequently every pledge was prohibited to enter into any meetings. I still recall every Monday coming to the house only to get every actives signature on my paddle. The meetings were generally later in the day, to prevent any class conflicts, because every member was required to be at the meeting. With there being very little room in the meeting area it seemed they never expected every member to attend, which was quite shocking to me at first. Delta Sigma Phi has easily 100+ members, yet no more than half attend the meetings, and still the members that attend are never consistent.

When the time came close to meeting time more and more members pilled into the house, approximately 35 live in the actual fraternity house. Thus, no more than 30 more members come to the meeting who don’t already live in the house. When entering the house each member is met at the door from the cluster of people chatting over a 100 different topics. Surprisingly cops don’t suspect there is a party going on with all the rambunctious activity. The attire for this specific meeting was relaxed, however, there are many meetings that are formal. As I was told as a pledge, “It’s turns you into a man,” were the exact words of the pledge class educator. Particularly tonight the member’s wore any attire they felt was comfortable, jeans or sweats, t-shirts or hoodies, and sneakers of any sort. Ironically, the attire fit the organization perfectly. Instead of being ahead of time, already in their seats and ready almost every member felt the need to wait until literally one second until the meeting began to stampede down the stairs by the dozens. It reminded me of Spain’s Running of the Bulls. After about thirty seconds of massacre every member except a select few were sitting. The last few would join the group a few minutes late, which were the same few every other week. Yet, this problem was never confronted. Sitting in the back gave me a view of the entire meeting area. After entering the room myself I noticed how bright the room was, with green and white walls. This created a very dull atmosphere for me, which made me seem like a kid again. My teachers use to decorate their rooms with different colors to keep kids interested. I always laughed at this concept, yet it seemed to make a lot of sense when sitting in a chair with blank white walls. Even I couldn’t focus on the topic at hand, yet give my attention to some guy talking in front of fifty other guys.

Most meetings I’ve attended have always had a leader or group of leaders to take the role of the spokesperson. However, the speaker usually has the floor, with authority over the meeting. Except, the longer I watched the more I noticed how the entire group controlled the meeting. Without reasoning, yelling out comments to ideas that weren’t in their favor or even holding their own conversations. Since I was a guest, there wasn’t much for me to do except watch the meeting unravel into a mess. It seemed very little work was put into organization of the meeting, consequently showing during the meeting. As the meeting progressed it seemed fewer and fewer topics were being discussed. The attention span of the group seemed almost instantaneous flip-flopping among each other’s conversations, which I mentioned were entirely irrelevant from the topics at hand. The area which normally only fit a little over twenty-five people was now holding a whopping fifty-plus. Tensions seemed to rise directly with the temperature, sky-rocketing. Shoulder-to-shoulder every member sat, breathing, talking, and eating or drinking only to increase the carbon dioxide in the room, which only reinforced the entire concept of Global Warming to me. I’ve learned from different situations, if you group guys too close for too long there is bound to be chaos. The different cliques were easily noticed throughout the room; each having their own beliefs. The only diegetic sound was the mumbling of the group, while I knew on film the jaws theme song would’ve been the non-diegetic sound playing. When a topic came to discussion that was obviously opinionated, I knew someone was about to explode. A common topic discussed is about the pledges. This is exactly where the chaos started. A voice from the left side would yell about how the pledge has been a complete idiot, and rambling about possibly cutting him. While the right side argued the exact opposite, explaining how the pledge has been acting to par and the reasoning for not cutting him. From having the experience of being a pledge I understand some actives will not favor you, while others will go out on a limb for you. The best explanation for this is who you generally hangout with. Luckily, I made my rounds to get familiar with nearly everyone. The discussion at first came very shocking, very harsh comments are made towards pledges. Not saying the active is being irrational, but that pledges have been seen acting in ways that are very unreasonable and have very little explanation behind them. It was obvious the topic was discussed to ensure that every pledge was genuine and possibly a positive influence on the fraternity. One-by-one every pledge was discussed, some very thoroughly for his distinguishing actions or even vice versa, while others were skipped over by single word answers, yes, no, good, or even bad. Every member seemed anxious to leave always constantly checking his cell phone or watch. Yet, there was never an end time put on meeting. This reminded me of psychology, when dogs were conditioned to believe it was time to eat when a bell was rung, causing them to salivate even when the food wasn’t being fed to them.  Similarly the members seemed to never want to be at a meeting, yet they want to achieve better goals in the fraternity. This seemed too hypocritical, wanting better, but not wanting to try. Finally, when the meeting was coming to an end the members went into an oblivious state not giving a care in the world of what was going on. The leaders who were in front of the room seemed to only be associating with each other, which was probably the more progressive action. At the end, the bulls were out again. Fitting fifty plus guys into such a small area was obviously not well thought out. It would seem after the first meeting changes would’ve been made. However, 2-3 years after having the house there has been very little corrections made. Except leaving was always more organized than entering. A Few of the members, mostly leaders would stay behind for a little longer to organize any information gathered or to solve any issues not yet talked about. Before leaving entirely members would go back to the same spot before the meeting to talk about anything else before heading off. While nearly ninety percent left to do exactly what they were doing before, homework, watching movies or television. The few who came from outside the house did exactly that and left, but only until the next meeting.

Peer Review In Class

During class I paired with one other classmate to peer review with. However, she wasn't given much to peer review because I had little to give.

My paper is very opinionated, explaining how unorganized the group meetings are. Also, how the meetings are in attire, attendance, and importance to the group. The meetings generally discuss the past weeks events and the future weeks planned. Without organization no progress is made. Similar to this idea I depict the entire scene of the meeting and give a detailed synopsis. This stance in the paper helps to give me an authors view of the scene, breaking down the entire scene. This way best suits the project.

While reviewing my peer's paper I found for the majority of her unfinished paper there weren't many errors. Especially, with the idea of ponging back and forth from play-by-play to a too detailed paper. However, I did mention to Jenna to be careful further in the paper. She had a tendency to mention a lot of the dogs actions, which was becoming very close to a play-by-play script. Even though the word count would've match, the scene depiction would've been horrible to read.

Due to me not having an actual essay to contribute my peer review was not very effective. However, I do feel Jenna has been given great advice from both me and Mr. Horton. I was also given great advice to base my future paper on. This review session is very effective, consequently I wasn't prepared with a rough draft of my paper as i should've been. Thus, I blame the lack of progress on myself. To solve this problem, i'd recommend giving a grade for the rough draft in class to ensure every student participates in the reviewing. On my part, I should've had a paper for peer reviewing.

Scene depiction

The scene starts off with Jim Carey walking into the training room. Very pointlessly he pulls his gun out and starts aiming it around. To give the impression this is a real exercise for policemen there were lockers, and the actors were wearing police uniforms. The scenery was depicted as a locker room. Jim Carey is the main focus of the scene, abusing all the policemen in a brutal manor, while supposedly teaching them the proper technique for policemen. The scene has no diegetic music, however the audience seems to play the non-diegetic role of sound. Every funny scene is followed by a crowd of laughter, but the actors are not meant to hear this. It becomes irrelevant to the scene itself. Even the actors other than Jim Carey play an insignificant role. Without Jim Carey the seen has no actual point. As the scene continues Jim Carey explains proper techniques for cops while harassing the other policemen. The end scene is Jim Carey attacking a cameraman recording the entire class.

2nd Speech

For my second speech I will be looking into Greek life. Particularly the fraternity Delta Sigma Phi. Last semester I rushed this fraternity, but with my GPA I was unable to initiate. Next Fall I plan to rush again, thus being the reason I'm researching into this group. I'm very familiar with the group members, I'll have much easier access to events and meetings to help with my research. I have found they have meetings in the fraternity house every monday, I'll contact the president this weekend to gather more information regarding my research.

Speech Analysis

First of all I promised myself to never resort to note cards. However, being ill i have had insomnia for about 2 weeks. It would've been much smarter for me to memorize my speech earlier incase issues occurring. But, if I wasn't sick i would've told myself to get plenty of sleep the night before. Besides the few unclear pronouncing, I kept my hands in a comfortable position. Standing in the same spot was a little more nerve racking, as you can see my knees continuously bowing out to relieve nerves. 

Looking back at past speeches I was more prepared this time, just not ready for the illness to hit. The topic being about myself helped me paraphrase from the cards a little, helping to increase eye contact to the audience. Other than the physical aspect, the content was all there. The only con was speaking rather fast. A pro from the speech was possibly the connection of my introduction. Of course not everyone wanted to play professional sports as a child, but as I remember the majority had. 

Using the entire stage (front of class) would've helped with relieving nerves, which is exactly what you said. However, not knowing the cameraman was wiling to rotate the camera I stayed in the same position. Bad thing about dressing semi-formal, the temperature in the room seems to rise much faster. Next time i'll be sure to wear proper attire that will fit with the temperature.