Creating Impact

Want to learn more about how concussions can affect your mental health? Check out Impact at https://sites.google.com/site/headinjuriesincontactsports/

Creating this site was a learning experience for me, considering I have never built a website before. Due to the fact that I lack experience with technology, my contribution to our team was mainly the design effort, as well as providing primary sources. Growing up in a football household, being raised by a football coach and dating a hockey player, I have witnessed many concussions take place in sporting events. My experiences with this gave me the benefit of contacting people I knew who had been trained in dealing with concussions, as well people who have been concussed themselves for a different point of view. Design-wise, I found many of the images that we chose to use, and I also chose our color scheme for the site.

Overall, I had mixed feelings about the process of creating Impact. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Austin, Eric, and Mackenzie, and I feel as though we collaborated well with each other. We overcame some obstacles throughout the design process, including Eric's overnight hospital stay the night before our presentation. He is a perfect example of everyone pulling their own weight on this project. Even if one of us couldn't make it to class, or an out-of-class meeting (as we are all college students with busy schedules,) the group would simply send that person a message outlining what was discussed and informing them of what needed to be done. This proved to be an effective system for us, as we are not all able to attend every class and scheduling meetings outside of class was a struggle as well. 

I was happy with the group I worked with, but I was not happy with Google Sites. We encountered issue after issue with this system and it was nearly impossible to format our page. If I could do anything differently, I would choose to use a different site, such as possibly Wix.com. 

Regardless of our issues with Google Sites, I am very happy with our final product. I believe it serves the purpose that we intended for it to serve, and I believe that simplicity was the way to go for our group. Personally, I feel that too much "flash," so to speak, would take away some of our credibility and make it more difficult for us to reach our target audience. Our purpose was to inform and educate athletes, coaches, and parents about the risks of concussions and the proper ways to prevent head injuries, and I feel that we fulfilled that purpose in a clean, straightforward, yet visually appealing manner.

#Don'tBeDave PSA

#Don'tBeDave came about because we saw a problem with binge drinking among college students on our campus, and we saw all of the issues that were caused by it. It's very important to make sure that students can see the consequences that may come about from excessive drinking in college, such as a decrease in productivity in school as shown by Dave receiving a letter of suspension from the university.

We chose to use video, rather than flyers or posters, to convey our message because we believed that video would give us a better use of pathos towards our audience. We wanted to strongly affect the emotions of our viewers to show them the true severity of the situations that binge drinking can land a person in.

I would say that the process of filming and editing went very smoothly for our group. Everyone in our group was full of ideas, so we definitely had to make some cuts from our original storyboard. We had absolutely no problems with people pulling their own weight - everyone followed through with their responsibilities regarding the project. We did the filming at a friend's house, and our only issue with filming had to do with our camera. We tried to use a camera that we borrowed from the school, but quickly realized it was not able to zoom in to capture the type of shots that we needed. We simply switched to the camera on one of our phones, and that worked much more efficiently.

I had expected the editing process to be much more difficult that it was. We used iMovie, and to our surprise, as well as convenience, the clips that we had decided to use fit perfectly together to last one minute once we added transitions. We did have to play with the sound a bit to make the gunshot sound louder, because we obviously could not have the gunshot and the sound of the bottle dropping at the same volume. It was interesting trying to make that work.

As far as the overall project, I am very happy with how our final product turned out. I feel that it played to the viewer's emotions well, resulting in our message being successfully conveyed. Our tone was very serious, and I think that worked well for the goals we wanted to achieve. I would not change anything about our project. We worked well together as a group, and accomplished what we were trying to do. In the end, this project was a very positive experience for me.

The Importance of Versatile Dancers

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In the field of the Performing Arts, it is not unusual to find divas and dramatics. Unfortunately this can often take opportunities away from performers who are unwilling to expand their horizons and work in different areas of their field of expertise, especially for dancers. Most choreographers expect professional dancers to be able to do anything and everything – which can be a problem if a dancer has only been trained in a particular style. It is all too common to find dancers who identify themselves as “jazz dancers,” “hip hop dancers,” or “ballerinas” as opposed to dancing a variety of styles. As we all know, being a well-rounded dancer is the only way to survive professionally in the world of performance today, and unfortunately too many dancers are allowing their pride to take precedence over their passion for dance.

It is no secret that jobs for professional dancers are extremely difficult to come by, and it is hard to believe that dancers are actually compromising their own opportunities because of their artistic values. However, this is happening. Unfortunately, it is all too common to find a dancer that has been trained for years in classical ballet unable to catch a beat in a hip hop routine, simply because of the elitist attitude that often exists in more classical training facilities. I believe this attitude stems from a much deeper place of resentment from professionally trained dancers towards more independent, street-style dancers. Instructors are often times encouraging students to broaden their horizons, as is the case with Jennifer Deckert, a professor of dance at the University of Wyoming. She discourages her students from boxing themselves into a singular style of dance. Referring to a student, she says “They are a dancer and they exist as a dancer in every form of dance they do… they don’t change from one type to another.”

It helps that Deckert herself is an accomplished dancer. Having been trained by one of the most prestigious schools in St. Louis growing up, and later on gaining her masters at the University of Utah, Jennifer has spent much of her life improving herself to become a more versatile dancer. She says that professional dancers are expected to do almost anything, and in fact she has encountered many dancers throughout her career that have fallen short of this expectation. Unfortunately, many dancers see no reason to expand their horizons past what they have always been taught. However, choreographers like to expand their work artistically, adding more difficult and demanding technique to their dances than ever before. I’m sure we all have found ourselves in a situation with a choreographer or instructor asking us to do a move that we are unable to master – and have dealt with the embarrassment following it. The importance of being versatile cannot be stressed enough, if for no other reason than just to avoid a career faux pas such as this. As an instructor, Deckert expects her students to be open-minded to new moves and styles. According to Deckert, “The most important aspect of a well-rounded dancer is not the ability to “do” it all, but the willingness to explore.”

On the other hand, many members of the dance community choose to focus on a single style because they maintain a more specific goal in their mind while they are being trained. For an example, a dancer may choose to focus on ballet because her end goal is to dance for the New York City Ballet. While this is a valid theory, the New York City Ballet expects their company dancers to be fluent in many forms of dance. They do not take on dancers without a solid background in various types of dance such as modern, jazz, and tap.

Dancers who take their careers seriously know that versatility is key to being a successful performer. Successful dancers do not let their pride get in the way of their job – or for that matter, their love of dance. Successful dancers are aware that choreographers have high expectations for them. As dancers, we understand the difficulty of auditions and working with new instructors. This is why we must embrace new styles, and become well-rounded performers.

To learn more about a dancer's career outlook, check out one of these websites:

National Career Service: Dancer

Career Girls

Bureau of Labor Statistics