Contest Details
Perspectives and the Power of Narrative*
We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are.
~Anais Nin
Through narrative we enter the world of others. Through narrative
we piece together, filtered by our individual perspectives, a
series of events.
We encounter narratives in a variety of fashions—from spoken
word, to novel, to television, to interactive media. Narratives
reflect the perspective of one person, or the imagined perspectives
of many. Fictions of martian worlds and ancient histories collide
with first-hand accounts of sporting events or disasters. Either
way, the text or picture show, whether of a person’s life
or of intergalactic events on Sidius 7, is only an artful approximation,
a narrative, through which we glean a series of events.
Importantly, narratives exist outside the rules of the universe
they mimic. They dictate the order, viewpoint(s), and emphasis
by which we uncover a series of events, AND are free to bend the
rules of time and space to do so.
As such, many of our most conventional narrative forms employ
startling breaks with linear order. Imagine how different one’s
experience of reading Sherlock Holmes would be if we
found out from the get go who did it! How would a detective story
work if not for the artful skill by which the author has constructed
the narrative, so as to heighten interest by revealing the actual
series of events in a selective way, often out of linear order.
For example, in the movie Citizen Kane, Kane’s
death is the first event of the movie--the rest of the picture
is spent retracing his life. In Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
the whole mid-section of the movie is a flashback to events long
preceding the main action of the story. Films like Pulp Fiction
and Memento, following on the heels of authors like William
S. Burroughs—exploit this fascinating gap between narrative
order and that of everyday life. To this extent, they provide
compelling stories that catch us off guard and in doing so broaden
our understanding of the world.
So let your creativity go. Freak out. Tell us this story with
your video in less than 5 minutes, however you want to tell it.
What a day!
Lead character wakes up. Sees something funny. Gets
ready for work. Arrives late to work. Has a strange conversation
by the water cooler. Later, makes an incredible discovery. Lead
character celebrates. Lead character falls asleep.
See the degree to which one’s perspective and the way one
chooses to tell a story affects our perception of events, places,
and people.
Good Luck!
*Contest theme and description
created by Dustin Hurt
Contest Timeline
- Registration opens - January 11, 2006
- Registration ends - March 11, 2006
- Deadline for Submissions - March 27, 2006
- Judging period - April 1 - April 17, 2006
- Festival and Awards - April 27, 2006 Hodges Library Auditorium
Judging the Entries
Judging Criteria
We are looking for lots of creativity and we're expecting a wide
range of interpretations in the submissions. The competition is
open to those of all skill levels and we encourage anyone interested
in participating to do so. Thus, we have created a very broad
set of ideas to use as judging criteria. We are asking the judges
(and you as well) to consider the following when viewing each
entry:
- • Have all contest rules been met? length, format, story
elements
- • Creative, individual and provocative perspective when
telling the story
- • Technical finesse in the finished product
Judges
- Cyndy Edmonds, Multimedia Specialist, Innovative
Technology Center
For the past ten years Cyndy has been working for the Center
for Telecommunications and Video (CTV) at the University of
Tennessee. She has been a multimedia graphic artist, responsible
for the look of interactive multimedia cd-roms, video, and live
television produced by CTV for various entities in state government,
and within the university system. Some of her other duties included:
video editor, videographer, technical director, audio operator,
and floor director. As a project director of the multimedia
group, Cyndy was responsible for the production of "Tools
for Your Success", a CD that was distributed to over 10,000
incoming freshman in 1999, 2000 and 2001. Her most recent project
was a cd-rom project created for the Tennessee Farmers Cooperative,
Tennessee Farm Bureau and University of Tennessee Agricultural
Extension Service called "Bringing Agriculture to Life,"
designed to educate Tennesseans about the value and importance
of agriculture in everyday life.
-
- Jenn Fishman, Assistant Professor, Department
of English
Dr. Fishman, a member of the Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics
faculty, offers courses in first-year writing, advanced rhetoric
and writing, history of rhetoric, eighteenth-century studies,
and pedagogy.
Currently, Dr. Fishman is pursuing research in two primary areas
of Rhetoric and Composition, contemporary writing research on
one hand and historical rhetorics on the other. As a member
of the ongoing Stanford Study of Writing, she continues to track
the writing activities of 189 Stanford undergraduates, working
alongside Andrea Lunsford (Principal Investigator), Erin Krampetz,
and Laurie Stapleton. Meanwhile, here at UTK, Dr. Fishman is
co-leading the Embodied Literacies Project, a classroom study
of first-year writing that aims to identify ways in which first-year
writers benefit from embodied literacy activities, including
formal and informal presentations, recorded essays, and interactive
online composing. On this project, Dr. Fishman is joined by
co-principal investigator Stacey Pigg (M.A. candidate) and researchers
Miya Abbott (M.A. candidate), Devon Asdell (M.A. candidate),
Bill Doyle (Ph.D. candidate), Casie Fedukovich (M.A. candidate),
Nina Nell Haeckel (M.A. candidate), Jerod Hollyfield (M.A. Candidate),and
Amanda Watkins (M.A. candidate), as well as colleague Dr. Mary
Jo Reiff, Director of First-Year Writing. The Embodied Literacies
Project was recently featured in the Faculty
Spotlight on the ITC website.
Dr. Fishman is also at work on a scholarly monograph, Active
Literacy and Rhetorical Traditions, which concerns rhetorics
of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Reading against
received histories of the period, Active Literacy approaches
the rhetorical tradition as a teaching tradition and examines
the central role that embodied rhetorical performances played
in shaping and disseminating eighteenth-century rhetorical ideas
and practices. Focused primarily on English examples, Active
Literacy recovers delivery, the fifth canon of rhetoric, in
order to rethink how activities such as public oratory, elocutionary
displays, and public theatrical presentations carried both rhetoric
and rhetoric instruction off the page and into the so-called
reading publics of the long eighteenth century.
-
- Al Harper, Freshman, Mechanical Engineering
& Apple Student Representative for the campus
Al is from Nashville, TN and is currently a freshman in Mechanical
Engineering. He plays piano, guitar, and saxophone and has performed
in several bands around Nashville. He is the Campus Representative
for Apple Computers, and is available for questions at aharper5@mac.com.
-
- Chris Holmlund, Professor, Modern Foreign
Languages and Literature
Chris Holmlund is Lindsay Young Professor of Cinema Studies,
Women's Studies and French at the University of Tennessee, and
Chair of the Cinema Studies Program. She is the author of Impossible
Bodies (Routledge, 2002), co-editor (with Justin Wyatt)
of Contemporary American Independent Film: From the Margins
to the Mainstream (Routledge, 2005) and (with Cynthia Fuchs)
of Between the Sheets, In the Streets: Queer, Lesbian, Gay
Documentary (Minnesota University Press, 1997). Current
projects include American Cinema of the 1990s: Themes and
Variations (Rutgers University Press) and Stars in
Action (BFI).
-
- Steve Milewski, Unit Head for the Media Center,
Hodges Library
bio coming soon...
-
- Mandy Vorenberg, Graduate Student, Media
Arts
bio coming soon...
-
Awards
Many thanks to the University Libraries and all our sponsors
for donating prizes for our awards night. Here are the prize packages:
- First Place: 1GB iPod Nano, Apple Final Cut Express, $25 UT
Bookstore/Computer Store gift certificate, Free Range T-Shirt
- Second Place: 1GB iPod Nano, Avid XPress Pro, Free Range T-Shirt
- Third Place: Apple Final Cut Express, Free Range T-Shirt
- Honorable Mention: Apple iLife '06, 2 Carmike Cinemas movie
passes, Free Range T-Shirt
- Audience Award: Apple iLife '06, $25 McKay's gift certificate,
Free Range T-Shirt
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