For my multimedia project, I am joining forces with Austin, Nick, and Michael Trowbridge. This past Friday, we ruminated together over what controversial topic our project should focus on. Austin had initially proposed the Electoral College and all its flaws. I had also broached the topics of perceived conflict between science and religion and discrimination in the college application process and in the job market. Another team member (I can not remember whom) also brought up the idea of standardized test scores and whether or not they should continue serving as a metric of education quality. We eventually merged and/or narrowed down our list of ideas to just three: perceived conflict between religion and science, standardized test scores and how they tie in to reverse discrimination and affirmative action for college acceptance or vice versa, and the Electoral College and whether or not individuals’ votes (particularly those within firmly red or blue states) truly matter anymore. In the end, after much discussion and a little bit of input from Kyle himself, we settled upon the third topic regarding the Electoral College and voter significance.

Our project will start off asking random college students if they voted in 2012 and if not, why not. Hopefully, at least some will respond that they felt that their votes didn’t really matter. We plan to interview professors specializing in political science and other such fields related to our topic and insert their videotaped input into our project. We also plan to gather students’ opinions and the topic and do a bit of research into the Electoral College and current voting policies (such as voter photo ID legislation and/or laws) and summarize these in the final project. A brief history of the Electoral College will also be provided.

In order to ease the progression of our project, we have decided to divide up the tasks involved. Some of us will help perform the interviews, which we hope to have completed by the end of the first week of classes after Thanksgiving break. Others will help with narration, script writing, and research into our topic. Finally, one tech savvy and experienced person will perform the editing necessary to complete our final project. These tasks are not set in stone, and in reality, we will also likely be doing at least a little bit of each task.

At the very beginning, we might start off by showing a bunch of students exiting a building after class has finished. This will be fast forwarded thanks to the magic of iMovie editing. Whenever a students stops for our interview, we will then slow down the video back to normal speed so that we can coherently hear what they have to say. While this is merely a rough idea, it is certainly a plausible one that might make its way into our final project.

If you’ve seen Jurassic Park, this is probably your idea of Velociraptor:

 

But if I told you that is our modern interpretation?

 

Well preserved fossils of Velociraptor arm bones show where the feathers attached to the arms, and other raptor species have been preserved with fossilized feather impressions. As such, we can conclude that Velociraptor too was heavily feathered. Some may find this new vision of Velociraptor to be unpleasant. Our minds have become too used to common tropes of dinosaurs that anything contrary to these conventions we turn away from. Some may argue that all too often science ruins the fun. I beg to differ:

 

Even with these new limitations, we can still have fun with science and art. Don’t believe me? Look @ Brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park:

 

It’s doing what you expect it to do: eat tall trees. However, why not picture it rolling in mud?

 

There’s no real evidence to support this, but modern animals play, so why not dinosaurs? The new science shows how much we used to not know about extinct animals, but it also suggests how much we still don’t know. So why not picture Brachiosaurus rolling in mud. Also, some might argue that the art is not @ all realistic, but after Jurassic Park, no artist can ever compete with the hyper-realism present in that film. As such, they don’t need to try and can be more free to play with style and more unconventional ideas such as this one. Now let’s take this concept even further. Here’s the T. rex most people are familiar with from Jurassic Park:

 

Now here’s a different view on the giant flesh eater:

 

Here we see two heavily feathered T. rex mating while the male bites the female’s neck. There is not enough evidence to confirm either a fully scaly or heavily feathered T. rex. We have evidence of at least small patches of scales on T. rex and its close relatives, but relatively smaller relatives of T. rex show fossilized feather impressions. Given the range of options here, artist Mark Witton chooses to go for the more unconventional view because why not? Also, T. rex skulls often show bite marks on them, and modern vertebrates have been shown to engage in neck biting during mating, so why not dinosaurs? Science is as much about how much we know as how much we don’t know, so why not have a little fun and break convention? This isn’t just limited to dinosaurs and art though. Back in the day, the ancient Greeks believed that everything was made of one or a combination of 4 elements: earth, fire, water, and air. They believed that these elements were controlled by the gods, like Zeus:

 

Today, we know what the elements really are and we put them in a table, and we know their properties well enough to know that they are not controlled by supernatural forces. This might mean that all the fantasy of mythology has been killed off, but fear not! We can still have fun with the elements. We can make the world’s smallest periodic table:

 

It’s located on a human hair. This guy’s, in fact:

 

But why stop there? People used to believe that all sorts of mythological creatures were possible, such as dragons:

 

We now know that dragons never existed and practically biologically impossible. Killing the fun of mythology again? Fear not! We can create our own epic creatures to make up for this, such as glow in the dark rabbits!

 

But if we take genetic engineering even further, then don’t we just end up @… Jurassic Park? Our journey has come full circle, and the one thing we’ve learned is that while science may appear a restraint and a buzz kill @ 1st, it still leaves open plenty of room for fun.

Going from a simple essay with pictures to a full-on presentation with no visible script and a wide range of audio-visual support available, some things are bound to change as I shift over from my paradigm shift essay to my TED talk. One thing that I’d like to add is just a short clip from Jurassic Park simply because it is responsible for some of the major changes in paleoart. In particular, it set a new standard for hyperrealism in representation of non-avian dinosaurs that paleoartists of the present don’t even try to compete with the film and as such focus more on style and other factors beyond realism. While I elaborate on this point quite a lot in my essay, it can be difficult for one to fully grasp without actually seeing the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. As such, I feel that a short clip from the film would be rather helpful for my TED talk. Also, I may put up other supporting pictures beside just the fossils and artwork already included in the essay. There are multiple times throughout my essay where I’m not referencing any art for evidence, and if I’m discussing such a topic, then I feel that I should have some relevant picture available for the audience to see just so that they can have a better grasp on the material being presented to them. Due to how technical my essay is though, I might struggle a bit to reach out to the laity. As such, I will attempt my best at presenting the information in as clear and concise a way as possible so that it’s more understandable to the audience. This may require cutting some material or words out from my TED talk or using more simplified explanations.