I really enjoyed listening to Act VI of the “20 Acts in 60 Minutes” collection, or “Messing with food,” as it appears in my notes. What I loved most about the documentation was the emotion, which wavered in intensity throughout the piece. Joey walks into the kitchen to conduct the interview with a man who somehow works as a part of the kitchen, possibly the head chef, Bill, and the level of emotion is pretty flat. But as the interview begins, the emotional intensity begins to rise, and as more and more questions are asked, it does so until Bill sounds to be fuming. This escalation in emotionality had quite an effect on me. It also clearly had an effect on Joey, the person conducting the interview/documentation, as he remarked on the cook’s obvious anger. Bill asks Joey why he is “…grinning like a cheshire cat,” accusing him of finding what they are discussing to be funny, and Joey tells him it’s “because you’re going friggin’ zero to ten just because we’re asking a bunch of questions.” The reason I picked this piece to think some more about is not just because I liked listening to it, but because I have decided to start fresh in my own story writing process. I realized that I just did not care for what I had composed. I was not passionate enough about the topic, nor was it personal and emotional enough. Emotion is what I want to focus on as I continue working on my new piece.
Focusing on emotions is a great idea for your story! There are a lot of different ways in which you can convey your emotions to your audience and so you may want to explore a few different ways of allowing us as your listeners to understand how you feel. The tone with which you read is also a powerful tool that you can use and by changing the inflection and volume of your voice you can show many different emotions with the same words. It’s not always about what you say but how you say it.
ReplyDeleteIn what ways do you want to bring out emotion? I think it is a good idea to start fresh if you are not interested in your topic. Creating a piece that focuses on an emotion, like anger, with a progression could be challenging, but worthwhile. I feel like I wasn't particularly passionate either, and I want my story to have a bit of confusion and an air of questioning. From the Act you talked about I liked it a lot too especially the recorded interview. Definitely a cool piece to inspire another story.
ReplyDeleteI think emotion can also help in the narrative arc, taking the audience on a journey or through an experience. Like you and classmates have pointed out, delivery of your story will be enhanced by inflection, tone, speed, volume, etc. that corresponds to the emotions. Emotions always make stories more compelling, so I think it'll be good if that's the direction in which you want to go.
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