The management systems related to internal and external environment

Attitudes towards employees: Employee benefit Wages, Salaries, Annual Leave and Sick Leave The organization maintains these expenses on an prepayment basis. They are therefore accounted for after they fall due. This therefore implies that they are partially reflected in the books of accounts of the period concerned. In effect the report reflects the payments due for services up to the final day of the reporting period.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on The management systems related to internal and external environment specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Employee Share Plans, Long Service Leave, Long Service Leave The net value of the amount due and payable to all the employees is reflected as an expense to the employees corresponding to an increase in the organizations equity. The amount due is measured and evaluated for the period within which it is unconditionally payable. With the exceptions of un-qualifying shar es the amount is recognized in whole of the total entitlements. Defined Contribution Superannuation Plans, Defined Benefit Superannuation Plans and Employee Termination Benefit The organization adopts an individualistic strategy   that makes single and individual computations for   each plan. The present value of future benefits its therefore calculated by discounting the future benefits at a discounting rate that is a balance on the maturity dates of   government bonds. This incorporates the projected unit credit method by a certified auctorial. if   benefits that accrue to every employee increase the amount is distributed on a straight line basis implying that the employee will receive an amount of the increase immediately it falls due. This increase is also reflected in the company’s consolidated income statement of the reporting period. The past service costs on the other hand are measured as the growth in the present value of the permanent or fixed benefits that the employee is entitled to in previous and current periods. Attitudes towards Customers: Aircraft configuration meeting customer demand Like any other business the company has over the past few years faced a great increase in the number of customer as well as consumer needs. The company has therefore made a structural adjustment by increasing the number of aircraft to take care of the addition al capacity. Growing consumer demands have also forced the company to adjust the seating arrangements to improve the customer service experience. This also ensures that the customer service level meets international standards. Qantas provide their customer to combine points from flying, credit and debit card spend and retail spend into single account The technological trend in the airline industry has favored the use of plastic money. Amidst the pertinent and obvious structural concerns, the credit card system has ensured convenience security and flexibility in transactions specifically in th e transport sector. Passengers get to earn points as a form of motivation and marketing for every flight they take. The points can either be based on the mileage traveled or the amount spent. The points my be used to upgrade a ticket or purchase products at the convenience of the customer.Advertising Looking for report on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Qantas services their customer by another brand of aircraft which is called Jetstart’s The diversity of the consumers goes requires the company to make provision for all levels of income earners. The company has taken advantage of the low income segment by partnering with a smaller airline that offers alternative cheaper but equally quality service. This falls in line with the price segmentation strategy in consumer marketing Caring for customer Customer care s a fundamental and important aspect of a business. It offers a basis and rationale for the formulation of the companies strategies and policies. The company has made an initiative to ensure that their customers are satisfied and assisted in every possible means. It has engaged consumer service surveys to measure the performance and effectiveness of their customer care. This has generated alternative consumer satisfaction strategies that will allow the company to grow and offer better service ( Qantas annual report, 2010). Attitudes towards competitors: Higher performance in every thing The transport sector has over the last two decades grown to become among the most competitive volatile and revolutionary sector in the world economy. The situation is even more aggressive in the private sector with every company seeking a piece of the large consumer base. The company therefore has a competitive and visionary attitude towards its competition. It has installed strategic mechanisms that constantly review the companies performance ratings as against its competitors to ensure th at it remains in front or at least on the front line. Safety It is every customers requirement that their means of transport be safe and reliable. The government as well as industrial requirements for safety are clear and strict. The airline has therefore given paramount importance to its safety precautions and guaranteed its customers an ultimately safe experience. It has invested in health safety programs such as health surveillance monitors that ensure that the customers along with the employees operate in a safe environment. Training and development The airlines employee base attracts a variety of professional limits that allows the labor force to benefit from a wide range of skills. Majority of these employees are based locally and are therefore easily accessible to the company. Updating market needs A pertinent characteristic of the contemporary consumer market is the changing preferences and tastes. It is therefore important for every company to constantly redefine and re- ev aluate its consumer needs data to ensure that it keeps abreast with the recent trends. The airline has responded to the changing consumer needs by simplifying and easing the check in experience.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on The management systems related to internal and external environment specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Strong complementary Brand In a market full of substitutes a company needs to diversify its portfolio to increase the chances of consumer following. The company has therefore partnered with an alternate smaller airline that allows it to access the low fare market. This makes sure that it maintains a presence in all areas and segments of the market Reference Qantas annual report. (2010) The Sum. Web. Web. This report on The management systems related to internal and external environment was written and submitted by user Amy Campos to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Gender Stereotypes in Cosmopolitan

Gender Stereotypes in Cosmopolitan ity.

Linguistic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Linguistic - Essay Example Although OED describes itself as descriptive by taking a more objective approach: allowing English users to utilize words according to which way they think is more appropriate; somehow, it is not as descriptive as other dictionaries like Merriam Webster’s or American Heritage considering that it subdues itself from adopting slang, newly-created words. For example, both Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and OED recognizes the word â€Å"skunk†; nevertheless, OED sticks with the original meaning while Merriam Webster’s Dictionary takes a new definition of the word which means â€Å"an obnoxious or disliked person† (Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, â€Å"Skunk†). OED claims that "it traces the development of English from the earliest records, and formally from 1150 AD, up to the present day" (Oxford English Dictionary, â€Å"Guide to The Third Edition of the OED†). Anyone can nod as to the looseness of the rules in this dictionary, but still, it has the slightest leanings towards prescriptivism. Acocella (5) asserts â€Å"the most curious flaw in the descriptivists’ reasoning is their failure to notice that it is now they who are doing the prescribing.† OED and other descriptivist dictionaries are becoming more of a trendsetter rather than an agency to respond to the changing needs of the society. However, OED’s belief that it’s a descriptivist dictionary but claims it â€Å"does include information on which usages are, or have been, popularly regarded as ‘incorrect’† may just be a sign that it’s not fully descriptivist

Unionization in the United States Research Paper

Unionization in the United States - Research Paper Example The most vibrant unions in the United States are usually among the public sector workers including doctors, teachers, police etc. They often targets on issues relating to the agreement and right on wages and increment on wages or if management tends to violate the laws and agreement on the rights of employees according to the contract. History of unionization in the United States: As the United States very rapidly developed various inventions and innovations, so it developed quite fast. Soon the State had been converted from a mere agricultural to a big industrial state. This change in the United States awakened the need for more and more laborers to handle the industries. these laborers were those people who were usually looked down upon in the society and the strong and powerful employers would advantage from the condition of the poor laborers and therefore, would mistreat them and take extra work, beyond their physical capabilities. Therefore, this is how the labor unions started to form so as to stand against the management to give the required right of the co-worker. Moreover, there even was a wage-bargain issue and above all, the major issue which was considered by workers at that time was the prolonged work hours which would result in workers making endless and extremely tiring efforts. The labor unions in the United States started as a protest against the long working hours. The working hours would not at all be convenient and hence this fact was realized in the 19th century and a step towards a protest was taken in the 1820s. During this period, the workers combined together to form a team to reduce the work hours from 12 hours to 10 working hours. Legislation to these workers was granted in 1837. Formation of the first labor union in the United States: According to the Illinois labor History society, after imposing this law, even then the employers would take extra work and wrong advantage of their desperate workers. The workers were poor and quite weak in power as compared to their highly strengthened employers. They realized they could not do anything alone. Therefore the minor labor unions of small cities decided to combine with the labor unions of other cities as well and form a large labor union. This is how the first labor union came into being in 1886. The first labor union was named as the â€Å"National Labor Union† (NLU). Formation of other labor unions in the United States: The working hours had now been reduced to 10 hours from 12 hours. Even this decrease was not enough for them, so, in 1886, the Nation Labor Union campaigned to reduce the work hours to a more convenient, manageable and less tiring 8 work hours. Then onwards, now labor groups started to fo rm in that era. These new labor unions included: â€Å"Knights of Labor†. â€Å"American Federation of Labor† (AFL). The founder of American federation labor was Samuel Gompers. Devaluation of the labor unions and their protest against it: As the Industrial Revolution came into soaring mechanism, the requirement for laborers once more amplified. This period was also noticeable by mass colonization numbers, which enlarged the number of laborers in the labor group. This also caused the value of the individual worker to diminish. This was due to some of the laborers, who were unskilled or not deserving were allowed to be replaced by the hard working and the

FGM among the Maasai of Kenya Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

FGM among the Maasai of Kenya - Term Paper Example Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) refers to the removal of an entire or a part of the external parts of the female sexual organ. In most practicing societies, the Maasai included, popular opinion towards FGM by the Maasai of Kenya is that its effects are more counterproductive than benevolent on the life of the innocent girl, and it should be disbanded. In the first place, there is a multiplicity of negative health consequences which are associated with FGM. First, FGM readily brings with it, hemorrhage, since the sponsors who preside over it are usually bereft of adequate surgical or clinical skills. Sponsors in this case are those who preside over this rite of passage. Again, the clandestine nature with which FGM is practiced makes adequate preparations for the ritual nearly impossible. This includes the failure to feature clinical tools to control bleeding as part of the sponsors’ paraphernalia. Largely, the legal proscription of the act by the Government of Kenyan 9 years ag o, underpins the clandestine nature of FGM practices. According to Maasai Rising (2013), the gravity of the matter above cannot be downplayed. Despite the Government of Kenya’s act of outlawing the FGM, the prevalence of FGM among the Maasai of Kenya remains at an appalling 95-97%. It is estimated that 5% of this population is lost annually, to hemorrhage sustained from the rite of passage. What exacerbates the situation is the fact that the age of eligible FGM candidates keeps reducing. Candidates are people who have been designated for initiation. The reason behind the reduction in the age of the potential FGM candidates among the Kenyan Maasai girls is that the Government of Kenya has appointed non-Maasai teachers to enlighten and conscientize the Maasai girl child on FGM and its dangers. These teachers usually teach in the upper years of primary school education, where most female students are considered ripe for circumcision. Because of this increased enlightenment among Maasai girls, the age of circumcision gets lowered to parry away rebellion from the girl child who is older and more enlightened. This means that presently, most candidates are not those at the onset of puberty, but those between 4 and 9 years. The crux of the matter herein is that the younger candidates are not strong enough to withstand to heavy bleeding and succumb to it. Because of the failure to make proper arrangements to deal with clinical complications that may accost FGM, there are other pitfalls that follow it as a rite of passage. Cases of urethral damage also highly and consistently accost FGM since sponsors who preside over FGM are not clinically or medically trained. Again, reports by Maasai Evangelistic Association (2012) show that FGM is inextricably concomitant with urinary tract infections, cervical infections, chronic pelvic infections and dermatoid cysts. Sometimes, the birth canal is interfered with to the point of causing dangerous childbirth in future. In mos t instances, the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus is easily aided by the practice of FGM since only one blade is used on all participating candidates. The blade is only wiped on grass and nearby vegetative undergrowth to wipe off blood. This makes it too easy for infections to pass from one candidate to another, should one candidate be a disease carrier. However, the Maasai Evangelistic Association (2012) observes that it is important to note that the malevolent nature FGM is not merely embodied by the health implications that accompany the practice. To argue otherwise

Analysis of JFK (1991) and Thin Blue Line

Analysis of JFK (1991) and Thin Blue Line Both films, for example, pore over minutae that may or may not be significant (umbrellas opening in JFK, a dropped thickshake in The Thin Blue Line) to draw the viewer ever more deeply into the world of the crime scene. Yet neither film stops at a simple recitation of facts: both look at the States role in events and suggest an explanation for the alleged cover up. In JFK, this is Stones highly controversial suggestion that the CIA and the military-industrial complex had a vested interest in seeing President Kennedy dead because he was shortly to scale down Americas involvement in Vietnam. In The Thin Blue Line, two related theories are suggested for the official insistence on trying Randall Adams: firstly, that David Harris account had the advantage of providing the police with an eye-witness, while if Harris was himself the murderer, no reliable witness existed; and secondly, that Harris could not be tried as an adult, thus robbing the District Attorney of the much-sought death sentence for the murder of a policeman. These theories are communicated through devices commonly associated with fictional narratives, such as a highly evocative musical score (Phillip Glass music for The Thin Blue Line invokes a melancholy sense of helplessness, while John Williams score for JFK has a more urgent tone, suggestive of furtive conspiracies and forces careening out of control). And both counterpoint different modes of filmmaking as they do so, contrasting invented material filmed in a classical Hollywood style with documentary or faux-documentary footage. The similarity in effect of the two films fast-paced juxtaposition of styles is striking, and suggests Stones approach may have been influenced by Morris work. Yet while both films have an over-riding concern with the filmmaker uncovering facts, that might be called the outer narrative, each constructs a contrasting relationship between the narrative and documentary elements within the text. In JFK, Stone uses an interior narrative of Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) investigating the case. While Garrison is essentially a surrogate for the filmmaker, so that the film cannot be considered as the story of Jim Garrison,3 this narrative is provided moments that function simply as character drama with little or no relationship to the larger argument (such as Garrisons arguments and reconciliation with his wife, or a Norman Rockwell moment4 with his children). This, then, is an example of classical Hollywood-style fictional filmmaking. This is then ruptured by the moments of documentary and faux-documentary that expand on Stones argument as it is being expressed by Garrison. This includes what we might call genuine documentary material: the Zapruder film of the assassination and archival photographs (such as of Kennedys autopsy, or the photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle). It also includes a large number of re-enactments, which are very often presented in a simulated documentary style (grainy or black and white film stock, hand-held cameras). This faux-documentary material is often juxtaposed with the genuine documentary material in a manner that blends the two together (the Zapruder footage is matched by staged footage using similar film stock, and the autopsy photographs are intercut with shots of a wax dummy of Kennedy). The Thin Blue Line shares the same outer narrative (filmmaker investigating), but the inner narrative (the story of Randall Adams) is not constructed in a classical Hollywood style. Instead, it is told through one of the standard modes of documentary filmmaking identified by Bill Nichols5: direct address by participants in an interview format (with the interviewer removed through editing). As with Stones film, this inner narrative is supported by evidence, but again the mode of presentation is reversed: the principal method used to support the witnesses testimony is through reconstructions of the crime scene that, while stylized and fragmented, are constructed as a miniature classically constructed narrative. This nesting of different modes might be tabulated as follows: My point, however, is that the films differ in mode, but use mirror-image forms of the same structure. JFK is primarily a fictional film, which employs a documentary style when re-enacting speculated events. The Thin Blue Line is primarily a documentary, but employs a style borrowed from fictional films in its re-enactments. If the two films share so much in common, and slide so fluidly from documentary to fictional modes so quickly, does this suggest the difference in the two forms might be largely cosmetic? Fiction can be used to express truths about the real world, and the documentary is can be used in ways that obscure the truth or construct falsehoods. If the fundamental difference between fiction and non-fiction is taken as the link to the real, and it is shown that documentaries and fictions share similar relationships to the real, then the two forms start to look more alike: not the same, exactly, but similar. JFK and The Thin Blue Line, by this way of thinking, are then only superficially different types of movies. They share the same structure and the fiction versus documentary dichotomy is more like a difference in genre than a fundamental distinction. This is not to invest the superficial crossover of techniques between the two forms with a significance it does not posses. Documentaries are not fictions just because The Blair Witch Project (1999) does such a good job of pretending to be a real document, or even because Rats in the Ranks (1996) works so well as a narrative. Rather, the downplaying of the documentary / fiction division is based upon a deep-seated cynicism about claims to truth in documentary. That there is such reluctance to accept truth at face value in documentary should not be surprising. Early or classic film studies was based largely on arguments about the relationships between film and reality. While this debate is too detailed to fully explore, it is important to touch upon briefly because much writing upon documentary echoes the arguments of these early writers. The direct link to reality might be seen as a defining feature of the documentary, but it was also seen in the first half of the century as one of the defining features of the film medium itself. The cinema appeared to be an even more perfect method for mechanically reproducing reality than the still photographs that preceded it. This added urgency to arguments of aesthetics that centred on whether the role of the artist was to attempt to recreate the real world, or rather to interpret or even transcend the real.6 These arguments were therefore central to classic film theory and resolved into two broad strands of argument that echo the aesthetic positions described. Thus writers such as Siegfried Kraceur and Andre Bazin had approaches that emphasised films role as a mirror to the real. Of more interest to the current discussion, however, are early anti-realists such as Rudolf Arnheim. In his Film as Art, his defence for cinemas status as serious artistic medium (rather than a mechanical process) is built a round a series of explanations of the way in which film differs from the real.7 Three dimensional surfaces are projected on a plane surface. Perception of depth is lost. In the black and white cinema with reference to which Arnheim formulated his thesis, colour is eliminated. Lighting distorts. Editing interrupts the flow of time and creates artistic possibilities through the use of montage. Non-visual stimulus is absent (or, after the coming of sound, limited), and even the visual world is limited by the edge of the screen. This catalogue of distortions is, for Arnheim, the very basis for the creation of aesthetic systems by which films can signify meanings. After establishing the above points, he sets about demonstrating how each of these limitations in depicting the real is used as a method of artistic expression8. Subsequent film theory moved beyond Arnheims formulations, but has tended to take them as a given in the sense that few would still argue that the central project of film is limited to the reproduction or reflection of reality. Given that such formulations are at the foundation of later film theory, it should not be surprising that they were echoed when subsequent theorists turned their minds to issues regarding documentary, and particularly its relation to the real. Noà «l Carroll attributes much of this writing to a backlash against premature claims by proponents of direct cinema that their method of cinema provided unmitigated access to the real.9 These documentarists attempted to avoid the filmmakers intervention and interpretation, reacting to the overt imposition of a viewpoint present in traditional Griersonian forms of documentary. However, as Carroll puts it, [d]irect cinema opened a can of worms and then got eaten by them.10 It was quickly argued that direct cinema was every bit as interpretive as Griersonian documentaries. For the distortions of reality that were identified by Arnheim are equally present in documentary cinema, but with different implications. Instead of being the unambiguously positive means to artistic expression, every limitation of the medium is instead a problematic point of mediation by the filmmaker. The limitations of the film frame, for example, force choices upon even the most non-interventionist direct cinema filmmaker. And with every choice the filmmaker is placing the film at a greater distance from reality. Carroll quotes Eric Barnouw making this point: To be sure, some documentarists claim to be objective a term that seems to renounce an interpretive role. The claim may be strategic, but it is surely meaningless. The documentarist, like any communicator in any medium, makes endless choices. He [sic] selects topics, people, vistas, angles, lens, juxtapositions, sounds, words. Each selection is an expression of his point of view, whether he is aware of it or not, whether he acknowledges it or not. Even behind the first step, selection of a topic, there is a motive It is in selecting and arranging his findings that he expresses himself; these choices are, in effect, comments. And whether he adopts the stance of observer, or chronicler or whatever, he cannot escape his subjectivity. He presents his version of the world.11 Such an argument certainly seems to cast doubt over the potential for objectivity in documentary cinema. Carried to an extreme, it is the presentation of a version of the world rather than the world itself that can be seen as rendering documentary a form of fiction. Either way, the prospects for documentary truth in such a model seem grim indeed. It should be noted that Carroll puts little faith in such an approach to documentary, and his counter-argument will be returned to. Before doing so, however, it is worth noting that more recently, Carroll has drawn the distinction between what he calls the selectivity argument (recited above) and more global postmodern scepticism of claims to truth.12 The latter is based not in the assumptions of classical film studies, but rather the wider discussions about the way any human discourse imposes meaning and structure on real events. For example, historical accounts impose a narrative structure onto events to make them intelligible, and a distinction must be drawn between the real events (which actually occurred) and the account (which lacks an independent historical existence): The states of affairs and events the historian alludes to do have a basis in historical reality, and the historians claims about those states of affairs and events can be literally true or false. But the narratives in which those states of affairs and events figure are inventions, constructions, indeed, fictions. The narrative structure in the historical recounting is not true or false; it is fictional.13 This point of such an observation may seem a little obscure. If the narrative structure imposed in a historical account is considered independently of the statements of historical fact that it is used to explain, then of course it must be considered fictional. If, however, a documentary text is considered in its entirety, then it is open to questioning about the validity of the historians factual claims (including analysis as to whether the narrative structure is an accurate or fair way of interpreting the real events) in a way that fiction is not. Certainly the argument is here being posed by Carroll (albeit following Michael Renov and Hayden White) as a prelude to arguing that it is unsupportable14. However, Carroll also refers to an alternative model for looking at the link between non-fiction and fiction, mounted by Bill Nichols in his book Representing Reality, which is more subtle and worth dealing with directly. Nichols, unlike the other theorists alluded to by Carroll, does not argue that documentaries must be considered fiction. He recognises that the existence of an external, real-world referent is an important distinction that cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. The world of a fiction film is a unique, imaginary domain, but the world of documentary is different: Instead of a world, we are offered access to the world.15 This claim to representation of the real means that documentaries are not simply narratives: they are also argumentative, if only in the sense that they make claims (even if only implicitly) about what is true. They are therefore a fiction (un)like any other.16 However, Nichols remains troubled by these claims to truth. While the documentary is distinguished from fiction by its links to the real, this representation is rendered problematic by the apparent impossibility of rendering truth objectively. Documentaries, while not fiction, share with fiction those very qualities that thoroughly compromise any rigorous objectivity, if they dont make it impossible Objectivity has been under no less siege than realism, and for many of the same reasons. It, too, is a way of representing the world that denies its own processes of construction and their formative effect. Any given standard for objectivity will have embedded political assumptions In documentary, these assumptions might include belief in the self-evident nature of facts, in rhetorical persuasion as a necessary and appropriate part of representation, and in the capacity of the documentary text to affect its audience through its implicit or explicit claim of This is so, isnt it?17 Nichols argument is reminiscent of those strands of theoretical thought that view ideology as an inescapable and all pervasive force. Documentaries do make claims about the truth that are open to evaluation, but unfortunately, according to Nichols, our institutional mechanisms for assessing such claims are themselves suspect. If such an approach is accepted, evaluation of the arguments made by Oliver Stone and Errol Morris might be highly problematic. Carroll, however, is not willing to concede that any of these arguments establish either that non-fiction is a form of fiction, or that objectivity is impossible. Firstly, he argues that the cinema does not posses any unique tendency towards bias compared to other media. The same arguments about selectivity that Barnouw raises with respect to film are equally applicable to other media and fields of enquiry.18 The particular causes of distortion may be different, but any historian for example may select, manipulate, interpret or emphasise aspects of their material just as a documentary maker can. Thus if non-fiction film is said to be subjective due to its selectivity, so must any field of human enquiry, such as history and science. In the earlier of the two articles I have discussed (written in 1983), Carroll is confident that such a wide-ranging scepticism would not be seriously proposed.19 As we have seen, by 1996 that was exactly the argument Carroll was responding to. Nevertheless, in 1983 his defence against the selectivity argument is based upon the notion of objectivity. In any given field of argument, at any given time, there are patterns of reasoning, standards for observation, and methods for assessing evidence which are used for getting to the truth.20 A piece of research is considered objective insofar as it abides by these norms. Likewise, non-fiction films may be assessed against similar codes, and will be considered biased or subjective if they fail to meet them. That selectivity may make bias possible, or even likely, does not preclude the possibility of a film according with established standards of objectivity. The obvious differences between the real world and the filmed presentation prevent film from substituting for lived experience, but they do not prevent documentaries from being objective. This central assumption of this argument that there are standards of objectivity that can be used to judge the truth is exactly the assumption that we have seen Bill Nichols question. Carroll, however, disputes all of Nichols contentions that are cited above. Firstly, he does not accept that objectivity demands that a film call attention to its processes of construction. After all, the fact that a non-fiction film is constructed is understood by any audience and does not need to be spelt out. Self-reflexive analyses of the filmmaking process or the authors own subjectivity might be a feature of many recent documentaries, but for Carrol this is an artistic device, rather than a necessary benchmark for objectivity. Nor does he accept that any standard for objectivity has embedded political assumptions, even accepting Nichols very broad definitions (outlined above) of what constitutes a political assumption. A belief in the self-evident nature of facts, for example, might be a political assumption when the facts being presented are politically charged falsehoods. Yet the acceptance that some claims of self-evident truth are suspect does not mean that there can be no self-evident facts. With regards to rhetorical persuasion, he argues that films can either eschew such devices altogether (he cites nature documentaries as an example),21 or employ rhetorical structures in the service of objective discourse. Similarly, he regards the implicit claim that this is so, isnt it as present in virtually any assertion and hence neither a political assumption nor a barrier to objectivity. Carrolls approach to these arguments about the prospects for truth or objectivity in documentary is often to return to examples where the truth claimed by the documentary seems clear and uncontentious (as with his common use of nature documentaries as discussion points). The linking thread of the arguments he presents is that the theorists he criticises have mistaken the difficulty in presenting objective truth for an impossibility, often by focussing on exactly the texts where the truth is most problematic.22 It is worth returning to The Thin Blue Line and JFK at this point, since these films both explore events that are subject to considerable conjecture. Neither could be accused of assuming the truth about these events is self-evident (quite the opposite), yet both nevertheless ultimately make vital factual claims. As noted already, these claims question state-sanctioned verdicts, and both films led to a public discussion that forced official re-examination of the cases: The Thin Blue Line forced the retrial of Randall Adams, while JFK contributed to the passing of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which appointed an Assassination Records Review Board (AARB) to re-examine unreleased information about the assassination.23 More than a decade later, with Randall Adams freed from jail, it seems fair to say that Morris case has been widely accepted as true. Oliver Stone, too, has been partially vindicated by subsequent re-examination of the case, with records released by the AARB that support some of his allegations (such as tampering with records of Kennedys autopsy).24 Yet, despite such small victories, and acceptance by many filmgoers of Stones theory of the assassination, JFK remains subject to fierce scholarly criticism of both its methods and conclusions that stands in contrast to the reception of The Thin Blue Line. Linda Williams, in her discussion of the two films, dismisses JFK as paranoid fiction,25 and the widespread condemnation of Stones film by both popular and academic press is well documented.26 Clearly this has much to do with the nature of the case Stone discusses. The Kennedy assassination, for obvious reasons, is a much more familiar event and one that had been the subject of considerably more public discussion than the Randall Adams prosecution. Furthermore, while The Thin Blue Line avoids underlining the political implications of its own conclusions, JFK is explicitly critical of the government and media, calling the assassination a coup detat and coming very close to suggesting former president Lyndon Johnson was involved.27 However, the difference in the reception of the two films cannot be explained simply through reference to the argument each presents. Within the very similar structures outlined at the start of this essay, there are also crucial differences that also explain much of the negative response to Stones film compared to Morris. In his consideration of JFK, Robert Rosenstone notes that there are considerable constraints over the depiction of historical events on the screen.28 In particular, he sees the need to invent detail and compress events to shape a narrative as a limitation that must be negotiated by any historical film. While he is referring to narrative features such as JFK, his argument is equally applicable to the summaries of and suppositions regarding events in The Thin Blue Line. This argument has clear overtones of the discussions of documentaries distortions of truth through selectivity that have already been cited. Like Carroll, Rosenstone argues that when a historical filmmaker such as Stone invents or compresses events, he or she is exercising the same type of discretion that the author of any written history must.29 Such inventions can be considered true (at least to a point) in the sense that they can be verified, documented, or reasonably argued. The problem, notes Rosenstone, is that the verification must occur outside the world of the film. When Stone argues in JFK that President Kennedy was about to withdraw troops from Vietnam, the information is justified by reference to a real memorandum (National Security Action Memo 263), but a fictitious character makes the reference. Assuming no foreknowledge of the case, the audience has no way while watching the film of even knowing that the memorandum really existed, let alone being sure that it supports the conclusion Stone draws. If Stones conclusion is to be examined, the audience must go beyond viewing and read the relevant documents (or scholarly discussion of them) for themselves. If they do so, they will, as Rosenstone states, be undertaking the same kind of critique and review that a work of written history is subjected to. This process of measuring a film against standards of objectivity is exactly that which Carroll highlights as the means of linking non-fiction films to the truth. Stone has actively sought to enter into such debates, mounting extensive defences of the historical accuracy of JFK and his other works.30 That JFK was so controversial was perhaps partly due to the fact that audiences do not necessarily judge films within such evaluative frameworks: unlike the target audience for written history, they may assume that what they see is true and not enter into the debates as to the films veracity. Even assuming an engaged, sceptical audience, however, it is also the case that Stones film does not make the separation of truth from fiction a straightforward task. I have already suggested that the film possesses three layers of exposition: an outer narrative (Stones case), an inner narrative (Garrisons story), and evidence (presented as documentary material and re-enactments). The inner narrative story of Jim Garrison (which is likely to be understood by most audiences as at least partially fictional and not taken as literally true) is often weaved seamlessly in with the evidence (more likely to be seen as Stones presentation of true material). Garrison, for example, meets the mysterious Mr X (Donald Sutherland) in Washington, who outlines a hypothesis about who killed Kennedy and why. This calls forth a series of re-enactments of high level discussions between officials that are weaved into Mr Xs account. The narrative is calling forth evidence, but the difficulty with this sequence is in separating what material is a fictional narrative device, what is speculated, and what is documented truth. For example, are we to accept that Garrison really did meet an anonymous official who told him this information, and take that as evidence that Stones case is true? Or are we to take this as simply part of the inner narrative, a method of presenting evidence? As mentioned, Mr X talks in detail of a real memorandum in order to put Stones case that Kennedy wished to withdraw from Vietnam. An audience might correctly surmise that the existence of such a memo (putting aside its meaning) is a documented fact. However, this quickly leads into discussions of the reaction to this memo within high levels of the government, and the point at which history slides into speculation in this sequence is by no means readily apparent. The re-enactment portions of the sequence are presented in a stylised style using black and white photography, but this does not flag them as conjectural, since Stone switches between film stocks throughout the film without drawing such distinctions. (Elsewhere in the film, for example, the Zapruder film of the assassination, is alternated with simulated footage shot in the same style.) The effect of these aesthetic decisions by Stone is to confuse the boundaries between non-fiction and fiction in a way that makes application of objective standards for assessing truth difficult. The audience can only infer which sections of the film are intended to be read as non-fiction and subject to such examination. Written in October 2001 for the Melbourne University subject Ethnographic and Documentary Cinema. Notes 1. This is the concluding sentence of Eric Barnouw, Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film, (Oxford University Press, New York Oxford, 1993, 2nd Revised Edition), p. 349. 2. The list of similarities between the two films that follows draws partly on Linda Williams, Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History and The Thin Blue Line in Barry Keith Grant Jeanette Sloniowski (eds), Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video (Wayne State UP, Detroit, 1998), p 381. 3. The films Garrison, for example, has access to information the real Garrison did not, in order to allow Stone to communicate it to audiences. For example, In the movie we attributed to Garrison the information about Shaws background but in real life Jim did not have access to that information at that time. (Oliver Stone audio commentary, JFK DVD, Region 4 Special Edition Directors Cut release, Warner Brothers, 1 hour 28 mins approx.) 4. This phrase is Stones own: JFK audio commentary, op. cit., 2 hours 10 mins approx. While these scenes are also used to communicate information about the larger case, this is an example of narrative efficiency, and does not contradict my point that they do contain aspects (such as the melodromatic touch of Garrisons children asking Dont you love us any more?) which function simply as domestic drama, with no relation to the case against Clay Shaw. 5. Nichols has revisited and slightly reformulated these modes over time, but they can be summarised as expository (ie voice-of-God documentaries that use direct address to tell the audience a truth), observational (cinema verite style films that aim to observe events without participating), interactive (interview based films that allows for direct address by participants, while allowing for filmmakers interaction through questioning), reflexive (films that draw attention to the documentarys own methods), and performative (stressing an individual, subjective position, while downplaying objective or referential aspects). See Bill Nichols: The Voice of Documentary, Film Quarterly 36, no 3 (Spring 1983); Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary (1991, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis), Chapter 2; and (for the perfomative mode) Performing Documentary, Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture (c. 1994, Indiana UP, Bloomington), pp 92-106. 6. This point and the subsequent discussion of classical film theory draw on the discussions in the anthologies Gerald Mast et al. (eds.), Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1992), pp. 3-7, and Antony Easthorpe, Contemporary Film Theory (Longman, London New York, 1993), pp. 2-5. 7. Rudolf Arnheim, Film as Art (Faber Faber, London, 1958), esp. pp. 17-37. 8. Ibid., p. 37-114. 9. Noà «l Carroll, From Real to Reel: Entangled in Nonfiction film, in Noà «l Carroll, Theorizing the Moving Image (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996), p. 224-252. (Originally published in Philosophic Exchange in 1983, and will be cited in future as Carroll (1996/1983) to distinguish it from his piece in Post-Theory cited below). Reference to direct cinema is p. 225. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., p. 226. Carroll is quoting from the first edition of Barnouws Documentary, citing p. 287-288 of that edition (Oxford University Press, New York, 1974). The nearest equivalent to this quote I can find in the third edition (op. cit.) is at p. 344. 12. Noà «l Carroll, Nonfiction films and Postmodernist Skepticism in Noà «l Carrol David Bordwell (eds.), Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1996), pp. 283-306. 13. Ibid., p. 288. Emphasis is Carrolls. 14. Carroll is frequently belligerent about the texts he discusses but is particularly so about Renovs Theorizing Documentary, describing it as a state of the art compendium of received thinking about the documentary film, and dismissing Renovs argument as a red herring. Ibid., p. 285 291. 15. Both quotes Nichols, 1991, op. cit., p. 109. Emphasis is Nichols. 16. This is the title of the second part of Nichols book. How helpful this argumentative nature is as a distinction between fiction and documentary (and how unlike any other form of fiction documentary can be said to be) is debatable given that fiction can be every bit as argumentative as documentary (as JFK demonstrates). 17. Ibid., p. 195. 18. Carroll (1996/1983), op. cit., p. 226. 19. Carroll: I mention this because I do not think that commentators who conclude that the nonfiction film is subjective intend their remarks as a mere gloss on the notion that everything is subjective. But that, I fear, is the untoward implication of their attack. Ibid., p. 226. 20. Ibid., p. 230. See also Carroll, 1996, op. cit. pp. 283-285. 21. Carroll, 1996, p. 294. 22. See, for example, Ibid., p. 293, regarding film scholars focus on art-documentary. 23. Michael L. Kurtz, Oliver Stone, JFK, and History, in Robert Brent Toplin (ed), Oliver Analysis of JFK (1991) and Thin Blue Line Analysis of JFK (1991) and Thin Blue Line Both films, for example, pore over minutae that may or may not be significant (umbrellas opening in JFK, a dropped thickshake in The Thin Blue Line) to draw the viewer ever more deeply into the world of the crime scene. Yet neither film stops at a simple recitation of facts: both look at the States role in events and suggest an explanation for the alleged cover up. In JFK, this is Stones highly controversial suggestion that the CIA and the military-industrial complex had a vested interest in seeing President Kennedy dead because he was shortly to scale down Americas involvement in Vietnam. In The Thin Blue Line, two related theories are suggested for the official insistence on trying Randall Adams: firstly, that David Harris account had the advantage of providing the police with an eye-witness, while if Harris was himself the murderer, no reliable witness existed; and secondly, that Harris could not be tried as an adult, thus robbing the District Attorney of the much-sought death sentence for the murder of a policeman. These theories are communicated through devices commonly associated with fictional narratives, such as a highly evocative musical score (Phillip Glass music for The Thin Blue Line invokes a melancholy sense of helplessness, while John Williams score for JFK has a more urgent tone, suggestive of furtive conspiracies and forces careening out of control). And both counterpoint different modes of filmmaking as they do so, contrasting invented material filmed in a classical Hollywood style with documentary or faux-documentary footage. The similarity in effect of the two films fast-paced juxtaposition of styles is striking, and suggests Stones approach may have been influenced by Morris work. Yet while both films have an over-riding concern with the filmmaker uncovering facts, that might be called the outer narrative, each constructs a contrasting relationship between the narrative and documentary elements within the text. In JFK, Stone uses an interior narrative of Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) investigating the case. While Garrison is essentially a surrogate for the filmmaker, so that the film cannot be considered as the story of Jim Garrison,3 this narrative is provided moments that function simply as character drama with little or no relationship to the larger argument (such as Garrisons arguments and reconciliation with his wife, or a Norman Rockwell moment4 with his children). This, then, is an example of classical Hollywood-style fictional filmmaking. This is then ruptured by the moments of documentary and faux-documentary that expand on Stones argument as it is being expressed by Garrison. This includes what we might call genuine documentary material: the Zapruder film of the assassination and archival photographs (such as of Kennedys autopsy, or the photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle). It also includes a large number of re-enactments, which are very often presented in a simulated documentary style (grainy or black and white film stock, hand-held cameras). This faux-documentary material is often juxtaposed with the genuine documentary material in a manner that blends the two together (the Zapruder footage is matched by staged footage using similar film stock, and the autopsy photographs are intercut with shots of a wax dummy of Kennedy). The Thin Blue Line shares the same outer narrative (filmmaker investigating), but the inner narrative (the story of Randall Adams) is not constructed in a classical Hollywood style. Instead, it is told through one of the standard modes of documentary filmmaking identified by Bill Nichols5: direct address by participants in an interview format (with the interviewer removed through editing). As with Stones film, this inner narrative is supported by evidence, but again the mode of presentation is reversed: the principal method used to support the witnesses testimony is through reconstructions of the crime scene that, while stylized and fragmented, are constructed as a miniature classically constructed narrative. This nesting of different modes might be tabulated as follows: My point, however, is that the films differ in mode, but use mirror-image forms of the same structure. JFK is primarily a fictional film, which employs a documentary style when re-enacting speculated events. The Thin Blue Line is primarily a documentary, but employs a style borrowed from fictional films in its re-enactments. If the two films share so much in common, and slide so fluidly from documentary to fictional modes so quickly, does this suggest the difference in the two forms might be largely cosmetic? Fiction can be used to express truths about the real world, and the documentary is can be used in ways that obscure the truth or construct falsehoods. If the fundamental difference between fiction and non-fiction is taken as the link to the real, and it is shown that documentaries and fictions share similar relationships to the real, then the two forms start to look more alike: not the same, exactly, but similar. JFK and The Thin Blue Line, by this way of thinking, are then only superficially different types of movies. They share the same structure and the fiction versus documentary dichotomy is more like a difference in genre than a fundamental distinction. This is not to invest the superficial crossover of techniques between the two forms with a significance it does not posses. Documentaries are not fictions just because The Blair Witch Project (1999) does such a good job of pretending to be a real document, or even because Rats in the Ranks (1996) works so well as a narrative. Rather, the downplaying of the documentary / fiction division is based upon a deep-seated cynicism about claims to truth in documentary. That there is such reluctance to accept truth at face value in documentary should not be surprising. Early or classic film studies was based largely on arguments about the relationships between film and reality. While this debate is too detailed to fully explore, it is important to touch upon briefly because much writing upon documentary echoes the arguments of these early writers. The direct link to reality might be seen as a defining feature of the documentary, but it was also seen in the first half of the century as one of the defining features of the film medium itself. The cinema appeared to be an even more perfect method for mechanically reproducing reality than the still photographs that preceded it. This added urgency to arguments of aesthetics that centred on whether the role of the artist was to attempt to recreate the real world, or rather to interpret or even transcend the real.6 These arguments were therefore central to classic film theory and resolved into two broad strands of argument that echo the aesthetic positions described. Thus writers such as Siegfried Kraceur and Andre Bazin had approaches that emphasised films role as a mirror to the real. Of more interest to the current discussion, however, are early anti-realists such as Rudolf Arnheim. In his Film as Art, his defence for cinemas status as serious artistic medium (rather than a mechanical process) is built a round a series of explanations of the way in which film differs from the real.7 Three dimensional surfaces are projected on a plane surface. Perception of depth is lost. In the black and white cinema with reference to which Arnheim formulated his thesis, colour is eliminated. Lighting distorts. Editing interrupts the flow of time and creates artistic possibilities through the use of montage. Non-visual stimulus is absent (or, after the coming of sound, limited), and even the visual world is limited by the edge of the screen. This catalogue of distortions is, for Arnheim, the very basis for the creation of aesthetic systems by which films can signify meanings. After establishing the above points, he sets about demonstrating how each of these limitations in depicting the real is used as a method of artistic expression8. Subsequent film theory moved beyond Arnheims formulations, but has tended to take them as a given in the sense that few would still argue that the central project of film is limited to the reproduction or reflection of reality. Given that such formulations are at the foundation of later film theory, it should not be surprising that they were echoed when subsequent theorists turned their minds to issues regarding documentary, and particularly its relation to the real. Noà «l Carroll attributes much of this writing to a backlash against premature claims by proponents of direct cinema that their method of cinema provided unmitigated access to the real.9 These documentarists attempted to avoid the filmmakers intervention and interpretation, reacting to the overt imposition of a viewpoint present in traditional Griersonian forms of documentary. However, as Carroll puts it, [d]irect cinema opened a can of worms and then got eaten by them.10 It was quickly argued that direct cinema was every bit as interpretive as Griersonian documentaries. For the distortions of reality that were identified by Arnheim are equally present in documentary cinema, but with different implications. Instead of being the unambiguously positive means to artistic expression, every limitation of the medium is instead a problematic point of mediation by the filmmaker. The limitations of the film frame, for example, force choices upon even the most non-interventionist direct cinema filmmaker. And with every choice the filmmaker is placing the film at a greater distance from reality. Carroll quotes Eric Barnouw making this point: To be sure, some documentarists claim to be objective a term that seems to renounce an interpretive role. The claim may be strategic, but it is surely meaningless. The documentarist, like any communicator in any medium, makes endless choices. He [sic] selects topics, people, vistas, angles, lens, juxtapositions, sounds, words. Each selection is an expression of his point of view, whether he is aware of it or not, whether he acknowledges it or not. Even behind the first step, selection of a topic, there is a motive It is in selecting and arranging his findings that he expresses himself; these choices are, in effect, comments. And whether he adopts the stance of observer, or chronicler or whatever, he cannot escape his subjectivity. He presents his version of the world.11 Such an argument certainly seems to cast doubt over the potential for objectivity in documentary cinema. Carried to an extreme, it is the presentation of a version of the world rather than the world itself that can be seen as rendering documentary a form of fiction. Either way, the prospects for documentary truth in such a model seem grim indeed. It should be noted that Carroll puts little faith in such an approach to documentary, and his counter-argument will be returned to. Before doing so, however, it is worth noting that more recently, Carroll has drawn the distinction between what he calls the selectivity argument (recited above) and more global postmodern scepticism of claims to truth.12 The latter is based not in the assumptions of classical film studies, but rather the wider discussions about the way any human discourse imposes meaning and structure on real events. For example, historical accounts impose a narrative structure onto events to make them intelligible, and a distinction must be drawn between the real events (which actually occurred) and the account (which lacks an independent historical existence): The states of affairs and events the historian alludes to do have a basis in historical reality, and the historians claims about those states of affairs and events can be literally true or false. But the narratives in which those states of affairs and events figure are inventions, constructions, indeed, fictions. The narrative structure in the historical recounting is not true or false; it is fictional.13 This point of such an observation may seem a little obscure. If the narrative structure imposed in a historical account is considered independently of the statements of historical fact that it is used to explain, then of course it must be considered fictional. If, however, a documentary text is considered in its entirety, then it is open to questioning about the validity of the historians factual claims (including analysis as to whether the narrative structure is an accurate or fair way of interpreting the real events) in a way that fiction is not. Certainly the argument is here being posed by Carroll (albeit following Michael Renov and Hayden White) as a prelude to arguing that it is unsupportable14. However, Carroll also refers to an alternative model for looking at the link between non-fiction and fiction, mounted by Bill Nichols in his book Representing Reality, which is more subtle and worth dealing with directly. Nichols, unlike the other theorists alluded to by Carroll, does not argue that documentaries must be considered fiction. He recognises that the existence of an external, real-world referent is an important distinction that cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. The world of a fiction film is a unique, imaginary domain, but the world of documentary is different: Instead of a world, we are offered access to the world.15 This claim to representation of the real means that documentaries are not simply narratives: they are also argumentative, if only in the sense that they make claims (even if only implicitly) about what is true. They are therefore a fiction (un)like any other.16 However, Nichols remains troubled by these claims to truth. While the documentary is distinguished from fiction by its links to the real, this representation is rendered problematic by the apparent impossibility of rendering truth objectively. Documentaries, while not fiction, share with fiction those very qualities that thoroughly compromise any rigorous objectivity, if they dont make it impossible Objectivity has been under no less siege than realism, and for many of the same reasons. It, too, is a way of representing the world that denies its own processes of construction and their formative effect. Any given standard for objectivity will have embedded political assumptions In documentary, these assumptions might include belief in the self-evident nature of facts, in rhetorical persuasion as a necessary and appropriate part of representation, and in the capacity of the documentary text to affect its audience through its implicit or explicit claim of This is so, isnt it?17 Nichols argument is reminiscent of those strands of theoretical thought that view ideology as an inescapable and all pervasive force. Documentaries do make claims about the truth that are open to evaluation, but unfortunately, according to Nichols, our institutional mechanisms for assessing such claims are themselves suspect. If such an approach is accepted, evaluation of the arguments made by Oliver Stone and Errol Morris might be highly problematic. Carroll, however, is not willing to concede that any of these arguments establish either that non-fiction is a form of fiction, or that objectivity is impossible. Firstly, he argues that the cinema does not posses any unique tendency towards bias compared to other media. The same arguments about selectivity that Barnouw raises with respect to film are equally applicable to other media and fields of enquiry.18 The particular causes of distortion may be different, but any historian for example may select, manipulate, interpret or emphasise aspects of their material just as a documentary maker can. Thus if non-fiction film is said to be subjective due to its selectivity, so must any field of human enquiry, such as history and science. In the earlier of the two articles I have discussed (written in 1983), Carroll is confident that such a wide-ranging scepticism would not be seriously proposed.19 As we have seen, by 1996 that was exactly the argument Carroll was responding to. Nevertheless, in 1983 his defence against the selectivity argument is based upon the notion of objectivity. In any given field of argument, at any given time, there are patterns of reasoning, standards for observation, and methods for assessing evidence which are used for getting to the truth.20 A piece of research is considered objective insofar as it abides by these norms. Likewise, non-fiction films may be assessed against similar codes, and will be considered biased or subjective if they fail to meet them. That selectivity may make bias possible, or even likely, does not preclude the possibility of a film according with established standards of objectivity. The obvious differences between the real world and the filmed presentation prevent film from substituting for lived experience, but they do not prevent documentaries from being objective. This central assumption of this argument that there are standards of objectivity that can be used to judge the truth is exactly the assumption that we have seen Bill Nichols question. Carroll, however, disputes all of Nichols contentions that are cited above. Firstly, he does not accept that objectivity demands that a film call attention to its processes of construction. After all, the fact that a non-fiction film is constructed is understood by any audience and does not need to be spelt out. Self-reflexive analyses of the filmmaking process or the authors own subjectivity might be a feature of many recent documentaries, but for Carrol this is an artistic device, rather than a necessary benchmark for objectivity. Nor does he accept that any standard for objectivity has embedded political assumptions, even accepting Nichols very broad definitions (outlined above) of what constitutes a political assumption. A belief in the self-evident nature of facts, for example, might be a political assumption when the facts being presented are politically charged falsehoods. Yet the acceptance that some claims of self-evident truth are suspect does not mean that there can be no self-evident facts. With regards to rhetorical persuasion, he argues that films can either eschew such devices altogether (he cites nature documentaries as an example),21 or employ rhetorical structures in the service of objective discourse. Similarly, he regards the implicit claim that this is so, isnt it as present in virtually any assertion and hence neither a political assumption nor a barrier to objectivity. Carrolls approach to these arguments about the prospects for truth or objectivity in documentary is often to return to examples where the truth claimed by the documentary seems clear and uncontentious (as with his common use of nature documentaries as discussion points). The linking thread of the arguments he presents is that the theorists he criticises have mistaken the difficulty in presenting objective truth for an impossibility, often by focussing on exactly the texts where the truth is most problematic.22 It is worth returning to The Thin Blue Line and JFK at this point, since these films both explore events that are subject to considerable conjecture. Neither could be accused of assuming the truth about these events is self-evident (quite the opposite), yet both nevertheless ultimately make vital factual claims. As noted already, these claims question state-sanctioned verdicts, and both films led to a public discussion that forced official re-examination of the cases: The Thin Blue Line forced the retrial of Randall Adams, while JFK contributed to the passing of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which appointed an Assassination Records Review Board (AARB) to re-examine unreleased information about the assassination.23 More than a decade later, with Randall Adams freed from jail, it seems fair to say that Morris case has been widely accepted as true. Oliver Stone, too, has been partially vindicated by subsequent re-examination of the case, with records released by the AARB that support some of his allegations (such as tampering with records of Kennedys autopsy).24 Yet, despite such small victories, and acceptance by many filmgoers of Stones theory of the assassination, JFK remains subject to fierce scholarly criticism of both its methods and conclusions that stands in contrast to the reception of The Thin Blue Line. Linda Williams, in her discussion of the two films, dismisses JFK as paranoid fiction,25 and the widespread condemnation of Stones film by both popular and academic press is well documented.26 Clearly this has much to do with the nature of the case Stone discusses. The Kennedy assassination, for obvious reasons, is a much more familiar event and one that had been the subject of considerably more public discussion than the Randall Adams prosecution. Furthermore, while The Thin Blue Line avoids underlining the political implications of its own conclusions, JFK is explicitly critical of the government and media, calling the assassination a coup detat and coming very close to suggesting former president Lyndon Johnson was involved.27 However, the difference in the reception of the two films cannot be explained simply through reference to the argument each presents. Within the very similar structures outlined at the start of this essay, there are also crucial differences that also explain much of the negative response to Stones film compared to Morris. In his consideration of JFK, Robert Rosenstone notes that there are considerable constraints over the depiction of historical events on the screen.28 In particular, he sees the need to invent detail and compress events to shape a narrative as a limitation that must be negotiated by any historical film. While he is referring to narrative features such as JFK, his argument is equally applicable to the summaries of and suppositions regarding events in The Thin Blue Line. This argument has clear overtones of the discussions of documentaries distortions of truth through selectivity that have already been cited. Like Carroll, Rosenstone argues that when a historical filmmaker such as Stone invents or compresses events, he or she is exercising the same type of discretion that the author of any written history must.29 Such inventions can be considered true (at least to a point) in the sense that they can be verified, documented, or reasonably argued. The problem, notes Rosenstone, is that the verification must occur outside the world of the film. When Stone argues in JFK that President Kennedy was about to withdraw troops from Vietnam, the information is justified by reference to a real memorandum (National Security Action Memo 263), but a fictitious character makes the reference. Assuming no foreknowledge of the case, the audience has no way while watching the film of even knowing that the memorandum really existed, let alone being sure that it supports the conclusion Stone draws. If Stones conclusion is to be examined, the audience must go beyond viewing and read the relevant documents (or scholarly discussion of them) for themselves. If they do so, they will, as Rosenstone states, be undertaking the same kind of critique and review that a work of written history is subjected to. This process of measuring a film against standards of objectivity is exactly that which Carroll highlights as the means of linking non-fiction films to the truth. Stone has actively sought to enter into such debates, mounting extensive defences of the historical accuracy of JFK and his other works.30 That JFK was so controversial was perhaps partly due to the fact that audiences do not necessarily judge films within such evaluative frameworks: unlike the target audience for written history, they may assume that what they see is true and not enter into the debates as to the films veracity. Even assuming an engaged, sceptical audience, however, it is also the case that Stones film does not make the separation of truth from fiction a straightforward task. I have already suggested that the film possesses three layers of exposition: an outer narrative (Stones case), an inner narrative (Garrisons story), and evidence (presented as documentary material and re-enactments). The inner narrative story of Jim Garrison (which is likely to be understood by most audiences as at least partially fictional and not taken as literally true) is often weaved seamlessly in with the evidence (more likely to be seen as Stones presentation of true material). Garrison, for example, meets the mysterious Mr X (Donald Sutherland) in Washington, who outlines a hypothesis about who killed Kennedy and why. This calls forth a series of re-enactments of high level discussions between officials that are weaved into Mr Xs account. The narrative is calling forth evidence, but the difficulty with this sequence is in separating what material is a fictional narrative device, what is speculated, and what is documented truth. For example, are we to accept that Garrison really did meet an anonymous official who told him this information, and take that as evidence that Stones case is true? Or are we to take this as simply part of the inner narrative, a method of presenting evidence? As mentioned, Mr X talks in detail of a real memorandum in order to put Stones case that Kennedy wished to withdraw from Vietnam. An audience might correctly surmise that the existence of such a memo (putting aside its meaning) is a documented fact. However, this quickly leads into discussions of the reaction to this memo within high levels of the government, and the point at which history slides into speculation in this sequence is by no means readily apparent. The re-enactment portions of the sequence are presented in a stylised style using black and white photography, but this does not flag them as conjectural, since Stone switches between film stocks throughout the film without drawing such distinctions. (Elsewhere in the film, for example, the Zapruder film of the assassination, is alternated with simulated footage shot in the same style.) The effect of these aesthetic decisions by Stone is to confuse the boundaries between non-fiction and fiction in a way that makes application of objective standards for assessing truth difficult. The audience can only infer which sections of the film are intended to be read as non-fiction and subject to such examination. Written in October 2001 for the Melbourne University subject Ethnographic and Documentary Cinema. Notes 1. This is the concluding sentence of Eric Barnouw, Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film, (Oxford University Press, New York Oxford, 1993, 2nd Revised Edition), p. 349. 2. The list of similarities between the two films that follows draws partly on Linda Williams, Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History and The Thin Blue Line in Barry Keith Grant Jeanette Sloniowski (eds), Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video (Wayne State UP, Detroit, 1998), p 381. 3. The films Garrison, for example, has access to information the real Garrison did not, in order to allow Stone to communicate it to audiences. For example, In the movie we attributed to Garrison the information about Shaws background but in real life Jim did not have access to that information at that time. (Oliver Stone audio commentary, JFK DVD, Region 4 Special Edition Directors Cut release, Warner Brothers, 1 hour 28 mins approx.) 4. This phrase is Stones own: JFK audio commentary, op. cit., 2 hours 10 mins approx. While these scenes are also used to communicate information about the larger case, this is an example of narrative efficiency, and does not contradict my point that they do contain aspects (such as the melodromatic touch of Garrisons children asking Dont you love us any more?) which function simply as domestic drama, with no relation to the case against Clay Shaw. 5. Nichols has revisited and slightly reformulated these modes over time, but they can be summarised as expository (ie voice-of-God documentaries that use direct address to tell the audience a truth), observational (cinema verite style films that aim to observe events without participating), interactive (interview based films that allows for direct address by participants, while allowing for filmmakers interaction through questioning), reflexive (films that draw attention to the documentarys own methods), and performative (stressing an individual, subjective position, while downplaying objective or referential aspects). See Bill Nichols: The Voice of Documentary, Film Quarterly 36, no 3 (Spring 1983); Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary (1991, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis), Chapter 2; and (for the perfomative mode) Performing Documentary, Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture (c. 1994, Indiana UP, Bloomington), pp 92-106. 6. This point and the subsequent discussion of classical film theory draw on the discussions in the anthologies Gerald Mast et al. (eds.), Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1992), pp. 3-7, and Antony Easthorpe, Contemporary Film Theory (Longman, London New York, 1993), pp. 2-5. 7. Rudolf Arnheim, Film as Art (Faber Faber, London, 1958), esp. pp. 17-37. 8. Ibid., p. 37-114. 9. Noà «l Carroll, From Real to Reel: Entangled in Nonfiction film, in Noà «l Carroll, Theorizing the Moving Image (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996), p. 224-252. (Originally published in Philosophic Exchange in 1983, and will be cited in future as Carroll (1996/1983) to distinguish it from his piece in Post-Theory cited below). Reference to direct cinema is p. 225. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., p. 226. Carroll is quoting from the first edition of Barnouws Documentary, citing p. 287-288 of that edition (Oxford University Press, New York, 1974). The nearest equivalent to this quote I can find in the third edition (op. cit.) is at p. 344. 12. Noà «l Carroll, Nonfiction films and Postmodernist Skepticism in Noà «l Carrol David Bordwell (eds.), Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1996), pp. 283-306. 13. Ibid., p. 288. Emphasis is Carrolls. 14. Carroll is frequently belligerent about the texts he discusses but is particularly so about Renovs Theorizing Documentary, describing it as a state of the art compendium of received thinking about the documentary film, and dismissing Renovs argument as a red herring. Ibid., p. 285 291. 15. Both quotes Nichols, 1991, op. cit., p. 109. Emphasis is Nichols. 16. This is the title of the second part of Nichols book. How helpful this argumentative nature is as a distinction between fiction and documentary (and how unlike any other form of fiction documentary can be said to be) is debatable given that fiction can be every bit as argumentative as documentary (as JFK demonstrates). 17. Ibid., p. 195. 18. Carroll (1996/1983), op. cit., p. 226. 19. Carroll: I mention this because I do not think that commentators who conclude that the nonfiction film is subjective intend their remarks as a mere gloss on the notion that everything is subjective. But that, I fear, is the untoward implication of their attack. Ibid., p. 226. 20. Ibid., p. 230. See also Carroll, 1996, op. cit. pp. 283-285. 21. Carroll, 1996, p. 294. 22. See, for example, Ibid., p. 293, regarding film scholars focus on art-documentary. 23. Michael L. Kurtz, Oliver Stone, JFK, and History, in Robert Brent Toplin (ed), Oliver

The Sun Never Sets on the English Language Essay -- Language

English has evolved in the last hundred years from being a fragment of the old Latin realm to being widely spoken around the new world. Despite living in America, we see international meetings where leaders of many countries all speak it to communicate with each other. Is it possible that English has become the lingua franca and will continue into the future to be the global language? There are many sources that indicate that future can only hold English as its selected language. In the future we will have a variety of â€Å"Englishes† that will dominate global communication, and this will occur because the dominance is believed to be ‘inevitable’, practical to foreign nations, and finally it appeals to a multicultural perspective for a cosmopolitan society. Everywhere you look around the world you can find the English language. In The Mother Tongue: English & How it got that Way, Bill Bryson explains, â€Å"In Yugoslavia they speak five languages. In not one of them does the word stop exist, yet every stop sign in the country says just that† (Bryson 179). Around the world we see examples of countries that don’t natively speak English but use it as a marketing scheme. Continuing Bryson mentions, â€Å"†¦On the bottom of the eraser is a further message: ‘We are ecologically minded. This package will self-destruct in Mother Earth’. It is a product that was made in Japan solely for Japanese consumers, yet there is not a word of Japanese on it† (Bryson 180). We can see the rise in world distributors producing ‘English’ products as the world looking for a common language; it’s seen as trendy, and obviously something that the people want. With its history starting at relatively the sam e time as the romance languages, it’s hard to argue that the people... ... at Essex Conference." Essex Chronicle [Chelmsford] 15 Mar. 2012, News sec.: 34. Proquest. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. http://search.proquest.com.accarcproxy.mnpals.net/docview/928036123/1359728E7DD36B71E65/5?accountid=48834 Liston, Enjoli. "Say Hello to a New Language." The Independent [London] 18 Jan. 2012: 40. Proquest. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. http://search.proquest.com.accarcproxy.mnpals.net/docview/916426138/13597240297686A7755/5?accountid=48834 Zhang, Xiaohong, and Margaret Zeegers. "Redefining The Role Of English As A Foreign Language In The Curriculum In The Global Context." Changing English: Studies In Culture & Education 17.2 (2010): 177-187. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. http://web.ebscohost.com.accarcproxy.mnpals.net/ehost/detail?sid=9cea4021-16db-43c9-96b8-6c68973bc7ad%40sessionmgr14&vid=1&hid=18&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=51624034

Water Is Under Threat Of Being Exhausted Environmental Sciences Essay

Like most natural resources, drinkable H2O is under menace of being exhausted due to over-consumption. And like most natural resources, one time depleted, regeneration of the land H2O and surface H2O will take 100s of old ages. At the present rate of ingestion every chance needs to be utilized to conserve our beginnings of H2O and create statute law that will promote wise usage of H2O. Governmental bureaus and private endeavor should mobilise their resources to construct proper substructure for H2O preservation like edifice dikes, reaping rain H2O, etc. This paper is a survey of current and future tendencies with regard to H2O use, and will show a image of what the following twosome of decennaries might look like. Water Technology and Emerging Tendencies: 1. Governments of all states are coping with issues related to supplying safe imbibing H2O to its citizens. In position of the pressing demand extended research has been done and some new engineerings and procedures have emerged. Electrolyzing imbibing H2O is efficient in extinguishing water-borne sources. E-water is formed by go throughing an electrical current to a weak solution of salt and H2O, which turns super- acidic that kills the pathogens. Water is therefore sanitized for imbibing intents and does n't look, odor, or taste any different from tap H2O ( Zinzi 2010 ) . In the hereafter scenario this will be a major agencies of recycling used H2O to do it drinkable and suited for ingestion. 2. Another technological promotion that has come to visible radiation is the usage of aquaporins as biomimetic membranes to let transition of lone H2O molecules and nil else through it. No molecule that is larger or smaller than a H2O molecule can go through through the channel. This ensures that drosss are blocked from polluting the H2O. The lone disadvantage of commercializing biomimetic membrane is to do it strong and stable plenty to defy repeated fouling and cleansing procedures. In future this will turn out to be a pillar in recycling waste H2O and saline H2O to do them drinkable for human ingestion. Politicss, policy and statute law: 1. Harmonizing to the US Geological Survey, future H2O demands can non be accurately identified, but tendencies of increasing emphasis on H2O resources the universe over can be widely recognized. Even though the jobs can be recognized, they will non be resolved on their ain. For case, aquifers can non be recharged rapidly after they are over-pumped. Water allotment struggles have been observed in many parts, these jobs are compounded by increasing population and forseeable drouths. Governmental bureaus like the geological study or similar bureaus are in a place to help states in apprehension, predicting, and minimising the impact of these crises. 2. The job of H2O handiness becomes more serious and outstanding as the explosive growing of population is predicted globally ( For e.g.US Census Bureau undertakings the US population to increase about 50 % from 282 million in 2000 to 420 million in 2050 ) . The hydrological agenda of any part is mostly influenced by regional factors like clime, rainfall etc. Infrastructure including waste H2O aggregation, storage and distribution of H2O, agribusiness, electric power coevals ; building of roads and commercial edifices and clean imbibing H2O for residential countries, must be planned for the sustainability of H2O. The job of worsening surface H2O and land H2O resources are a cause for concern. Consumption: 1. Projecting the information for 2026, based on the current tendencies of the economic demand for commercial and residential H2O use, it can be estimated that the engineering affecting optical maser beams used as a big scale H2O purification procedure. This technique involves laser beams being pointed at a watercourse of imbibing H2O that can observe and take unsafe pathogens and sublimate H2O for imbibing intents. This engineering will be used to supervise H2O safety for both domestic and industrial usage ( Zinzi 2010 ) . Giant strides in the development of cost effectual ways of reaping rain H2O will be made to prolong agribusiness and gardening. 2. Industrial H2O is likely to be higher in developing states compared to developed states. However, the overall industrial H2O ingestion will diminish globally due to betterments in H2O preservation engineering and monitoring of demand and execution of Governmental ordinances. Demand for H2O used for irrigation will, similarly, addition in the development states and is projected to be the most intense in sub- Saharan Africa and the Latin American states followed by Western Asia. Water scarceness in these parts may be intense as existent demand is frequently higher than projected demand. As a consequence the planetary harvest output rate may worsen ( Rosegrant, Ximing & A ; Cline 2002 ) . Families and relationships: 1. In order to project the demand for municipal and domestic H2O for 2026 one needs to analyze and acknowledge, cipher the jutting demand and put precedences for all bing and possible H2O use. Projection of future demands for municipal H2O depends on the alteration in the economic construction of a part and the efficiency of implementing alternate H2O usage policies. Other factors that may lend to an accurate projection include household size, distribution of household units between unitary and joint households and per-capita H2O usage ( Willsie & A ; Ratt 1974 ) . Water will go more of a trade good and ingestion will depend on the purchasing capacity of single users. 2. Future H2O demands may be computed on the footing of figure of individual and multi-family units, addition in population and the gross per capita usage of H2O per part. Domestic H2O usage depends on the size of the family and the seasonal usage of H2O. Education and consciousness degrees with respect to minimising wastage of H2O are besides of import factors. In 2026, H2O rationing will depend on the economic position and size of belongings in urban countries. ( House-Peters, Pratt & A ; Chang 2010 ) . Sharing of H2O resources across international boundary lines will be in focal point as struggles may originate due to unequal allotment and general scarceness of H2O. Health and fittingness: 1. Human organic structure is made up of 75 % H2O ( Maxx 2009 ) and we need to imbibe H2O in order to remain alive. Water is necessary for the proper operation of variety meats like the encephalon, liver and kidneys. Without H2O our organic structures will acquire dehydrated and will be afflicted with serious unwellnesss. So in order to remain fit and healthy all living existences need to devour big measures of H2O. Water is considered to be the wonder drug by many. Due to scarceness of drinkable H2O, people will be given to happen replacements in the signifier of soft drinks, milk merchandises and caffeine. 2. At the present rate of ingestion, the demand for H2O will far transcend the supply of H2O which will take to a H2O pricing system in most states. Denationalization of H2O across the Earth will hold serious branchings every bit far as wellness and fittingness is concerned because poorer people will non be able to afford sufficient measures of imbibing H2O. This will take to dehydration related chronic diseases like allergic reactions, high blood pressure, diabetes, and unsusceptibility upsets. This will impact the wellness of the society as economically backward populations will non be able to afford medical specialties and governmental resources will be strained to supply wellness attention benefits. Work and leisure: 1. By 2026, people will be preoccupied with developing newer techniques in H2O direction ( Griffiths 2009 ) and H2O preservation. So this will supply employment to a big population and will include H2O recycling and transit. A batch of scientific work will be encouraged by authorities every bit good private establishments at national and international degrees. The handiness of H2O will ever stay as nature has its ain manner of recycling H2O, nevertheless, the rate of recycling H2O is lower than the rate at which H2O is being polluted and made unfit for ingestion. Building H2O canals, reservoirs and dikes will go a precedence with governmental bureaus and will supply chances for employment, particularly in developing states. 2. As developing states gain economic stableness and richness, demand for H2O for basic healthful demands will increase. More people will be able to afford comfortss like Jacuzzis, auto lavation, horticulture and swimming pools ( Griffiths 2009 ) . This will add to the H2O crisis in 2026. Depending on the richness degree, fewer people will be able to afford installations that we take for granted for illustration holding swimming pools at place and H2O Parkss, etc. Global heating will impact winter athleticss like skiing which will ensue in beaches and H2O athleticss around the sea going more popular as leisure activities. Biophysical environments: 1. Biophysical environment in relation to H2O trades with H2O ingestion by people, land and farm animal. The alterations in clime, peculiarly rainfall, have deductions for fresh fish resources as it has for agribusiness. Since the handiness of natural H2O is non uniformly distributed, transit of H2O to countries with high denseness of population will go common characteristic. Puting extended web of grapevines overland for H2O for human ingestion every bit good as for farm animal will affect considerable outgo. Water holes, pools and swamps will necessitate to be tapped to run into the demands of croping for cowss. Herding direction and land use will necessitate to be implemented ( deLeeuw 1993 ) . 2. Demographic alterations are anticipated in future depending on the ready handiness of H2O for domestic and livestock use. In parts where the cost of H2O transit can non be afforded, people will switch to countries closer to natural H2O beginnings. Heavy industries are most likely to be set up close to rivers and other natural H2O organic structures as this will minimise the cost of transporting H2O for industrial usage. Land use for agribusiness will Promising societal invention: New stuffs: De Leeuw, PN 1993, iThe survey country: Biophysical environmenti , FAO Corporate Document Repository viewed 13 September 2010 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www.fao.org/wairdocs/ILRI/x5552E/x5552e06.htm & gt ; Griffiths, J 2009, Water Facts and Trends, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, viewed 13 September 2010 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www.wbcsd.org/DocRoot/lD1tMGiLZ7NL9mBOL2aQ/WaterFactsAndTrends-Update.pdf & gt ; Haughn, S 2008, ‘Global Tendencies 2025: Water deficits threaten nutrient security, energy supply and geopolitical stableness ‘ , Circle of Blue, viewed 12 September 2010 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2008/world/africa/global-trends-2025-water-shortages-threaten-food-security-energy-supply-and-geopolitical-stability/ & gt ; House-Peters, L, Pratt, B and Chang, H 2010, iEffects of Urban Spatial Structure, Sociodemographics, and Climate on Residential Water Consumption in Hillsboro, Oregoni , JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 46: 461i472, viewed 13 September 2010 hypertext transfer protocol: //onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2009.00415.x Kwok, SC, Lang, H & A ; O'Callaghan, P 2009, Water Technology Markets, Global Water Intelligence, viewed 12 September 2010, & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www.globalwaterintel.com/client_media/uploaded/files/sample_water_tech_markets_aquaporins.pdf & gt ; Maxx, 2009, iWater- Natureis Wonder Drugi , How To Maximize Your Health And Fitness, viewed 12 September 2010 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //health-and-fitness-buzz.blogspot.com/2009/05/water-natures-wonder-drug.html & gt ; Rosegrant, MW, Ximing, C & A ; Cline, SA 2002, Global Water Outlook to 2025, Colombo: International Water Management Institute, pp: 4-7, viewed 12 September 2010, Google Books. Willsie, RH & A ; Ratt, HL 1974, iWater Use Relationships and Projection Corresponding with Regional Growthi , Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 10: 360i371, viewed 13 September 2010 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1974.tb00575.x & gt ; Zinzi, F 2010, iTrends in Water Technology and Consumptioni , Ezine @ rticles, viewed 12 September 2010, & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //ezinearticles.com/ ? Trends-in-Water-Technology-and-Consumption & A ; id=4074865 & gt ;

What techniques are used in Shrek Essay Example

What techniques are used in Shrek Essay Example What techniques are used in Shrek Paper What techniques are used in Shrek Paper For this piece of coursework I will be evaluating the Technique that is used in the movie trailer of Shrek 2 to attract its target audience. The trailers are ways of launching a new film into market place.Tralier are mainly used for advertising. They contain short clip from the feature film which attract the target audience. The trailer is usually 2 to 3 minutes. Trailer are short because they are only effective for only short period of time as it losses impact. The main jobs of film trailer advertising to show the story in short and persuade the audience to buy film. From the trailer the audience are able to tell what genre (comedy, action, horror, and thriller) and the narrative of film is. From the trailer audience will know who is star of the film are who is the director of film. Films are also promoted in magazines, Newspaper, Internet and posters.  A target audience can depend on age and gender and will contain sound and images that will appeal to that target audience. Trailers are extremely important marketing tool, along with posters as they encourage many people to watch or rent film. Trailer must have many qualities to attract its target audience. It must have a great amount of information in a short amount of time. The target audience in Shrek 2 is all age group because this film can be enjoyed by anyone. Shrek is animated film created by DreamWorks and brought to life by state of the art 3d animation. The music used in the film is also different to other such productions. Instead of the characters bursting in to song all the time, the songs are played by an external person and reflect the mood of the characters in a particular scene. Shrek 2 Film is featured be all star cast providing the voice and a whole host of class new characters in the host of class new character in the enchanting Shrek story. The film has a large intake of digital animation, and has a long list of different animating techniques. Shrek 2 is a computer animated film. The Shrek 2 trailer use various technique to target it audience. One of the techniques used in Shrek 2 trailer is camera angel. Good camera angel is very import ant in any films to attract their target audience. Camera makes audience to view the film from different angel camera shot can make audience to look close-up view of someone or something. Shrek 2 have eye catching colour that will attract most of children. Shrek 2 film trailer highly concentrates on children due to the mixtures of colours and the cartoon characters, it also focus on young adults and adults themselves due to the hummer and animation with star voice throw out the hole movie. The opening of the trailer immediately catches the audience eye as the camera focuses on the words Far Far Away which sit on amounting top, as Shrek, Fiona and Donkey travel by a horse drawn carriage for 700 miles to reach the kingdom of princess Fiona parents . Here Adult humour is shown because the board should traditionally say Hollywood not Far Far away this immediately makes us smile. After the opening clips of the kingdom there is a flash and DreamWorks appears, here a voiceover is used. The voice over is a device that is intended to guide you to understand the film , using the right language and voice tones, to dramatise as much as possible without over hyping. The voice which appears as a standard feature in trailer, build the sense of mystery and suspense. The voice over in Shrek 2 says, DreamWorks invites you to a land of fairytales and then fairytale characters appear like the Pinocchio, ginger bread man, and the three piglets. A voiceover is used to link shots and to increase childrens understandings of what is going to happen in the film. Shrek 2 is aimed at both kids and families. Some scenes in the film were aimed at a specific target audience. For example, the scene where Fairy Godmother makes a performance on the stage and is wearing a red dress and lies down on the piano. There were some scenes that were suitable for kids to watch. For example, the scene where Shrek and other characters found out that Pinocchio wears a thong. Overall, I think the Shrek 2 trailer was persuasive and effective because it has influenced millions of other children and adult across the world to go and watch or buy the film. This was achieved by the producers using a lot of clever and innovative camera shots, sound effects e.g. shots of action and humour. These were sufficient to make people feel and think that this was going to be a great and entertaining film. The trailer had a lot of unique selling point e.g. the actors, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers and John. These actors are very famous and the best in their field. This is another strong selling point of the film.

The Role of IBM in the History of Computers

The Role of IBM in the History of Computers This chapter in the History of Modern Computers finally brings us to a famous name most of you will have heard of. IBM stands for International Business Machines, the largest computer company in the world today. IBM has been responsible for numerous inventions having to do with computers. IBM - Background The company incorporated in 1911, starting as a major producer of punch card tabulating machines. During the 1930s, IBM built a series of calculators (the 600s) based on their punch-card processing equipment. In 1944, IBM co-funded the Mark 1 computer together with Harvard University, the Mark 1 was the first machine to compute long calculations automatically. The IBM 701 - General Purpose Computer The year 1953 saw the development of IBMs 701 EDPM, which, according to IBM, was the first commercially successful general-purpose computer. The 701s invention was due in part to the Korean War effort. Inventor, Thomas Johnson Watson Junior wanted to contribute what he called a defense calculator to aid in the United Nations policing of Korea. One obstacle he had to overcome was in convincing his father, Thomas Johnson Watson Senior (IBMs CEO) that the new computer would not harm IBMs profitable punch card processing business. The 701s were incompatible with IBMs punched card processing equipment, a big moneymaker for IBM. Only nineteen 701s were manufactured (the machine could be rented for $15,000 per month). The first 701 went to IBMs world headquarters in New York. Three went to atomic research laboratories. Eight went to aircraft companies. Three went to other research facilities. Two went to government agencies, including the first use of a computer by the United States Department of Defense. Two went to the navy and the last machine went to the United States Weather Bureau in early 1955. Features of the 701 The 1953 built 701 had electrostatic storage tube memory, used magnetic tape to store information, and had binary, fixed-point, single address hardware. The speed of the 701 computers was limited by the speed of its memory; the processing units in the machines were about 10 times faster than the core memory. The 701 also led to the development of the programming language FORTRAN. The IBM 704 In 1956, a significant upgrade to the 701 appeared. The IBM 704 was considered an early supercomputer and the first machine to incorporate floating-point hardware. The 704 used magnetic core memory that was faster and more reliable than the magnetic drum storage found in the 701. The IBM 7090 Also part of the 700 series, the IBM 7090 was the first commercial transistorized computer. Built in 1960, the 7090 computer was the fastest computer in the world. IBM dominated the mainframe and minicomputer market for the next two decades with its 700 series. The IBM 650 After releasing the 700 series, IBM built the 650 EDPM, a computer compatible with its earlier 600 calculator series. The 650 used the same card processing peripherals as the earlier calculators, starting the trend for loyal customers to upgrade. The 650s were IBMs first mass-produced computers (universities were offered a 60% discount). The IBM PC In 1981, IBM created its first personal home-use computer called the IBM PC, another milestone in computer history.