Intention

I actually had a very tough time trying to figure out what to do for this project. At first I wanted to splice a video and rearrange the words to create new meanings but I couldn't find a video conducive for that. Eventually I decided to take history's most infamous dictators and "retell" that history by putting them into a lighthearted 1980's style sitcom. I thought that having clips of the leaders laughing, telling jokes, and otherwise doing everyday things would distract the viewer from their atrocities committed, and help them see the more human and charismatic side of them.

Write about the big ideas behind your project? What are the goals? Why did you make it? What are your motivations?

Context

I was somewhat inspired to make this by Family Guy. Not only is it a sitcom in itself, but it also features various sitcoms within itself, some which actually contained Hitler. I'm also quite interested in history and current events, and am currently taking a Russian history class.

What informed your outcome? Situate your outcome relative to other work.

Process

I used the VideoGrabby service to steal the relevant videos and audio off of Youtube. I then arranged them together using Adobe Premiere.

Describe how you arrived out the outcome. Show iterations and refinements. Document design decisions and challenges encountered.

Reflection

Despite my significant troubles in finding a topic initially, I am very happy with this project. I think that using clips of the dictators making very human gestures like laughing did a good job of obfuscating their deeds, particularly the lesser known ones like Idi Amin. I think that that this project 'retells' history in a way quite befitting the spirit of this assignment, and that it very much appeals to my sense of humor. If I were to redo this assignment with more time, I'd try to remove distracting elements such as subtitles and the logos of news organizations so as to not detract from the idea that it is the intro to a sitcom. I might have also picked better music and added a clip of Kim Jong Un to help better represent the dictators of Asia. 

What does your inner critic say about this work? What did you learn? What would you do differently?