A Reflection of a Ballet Autoethnography

Introduction

The video we created is about the positive and negative aspects of being a female ballet dancer. Amelia put in her own story confirming the scholarly information while discussing gaps in the scholarly information such as the number of dancers who leave the group after their body matures as well as the lack of information on the positive impacts. Our video opens with the history of ballet, the thesis, description of the group, and introducing Amelia as a source. The video is divided into 3 subsections: body type, body image, and an art with many purposes. Each section included a personal anecdote from Amelia and scholarly information. We concluded the video discussing the gaps in the information not discussed by scholars hoping to leave our viewers with the desire to pursue the conversation elsewhere.

Through this project we have been able to see both the positive and negative aspects of group work. Having multiple perspectives helped us build on each other’s ideas as well as see the gaps in our project. The opportunity to work as a group taught us the importance of collaboration. This will be an important part of our future as we go into the workforce. Each of us saw positive aspects and drawbacks of group work such as coordinating schedules. As we each reflected on this specific project we found ways we could have improved our project and the process.

Deciding on the Topic (Chuck)

The decision to move forward with Amelia’s paper as the focus of our short film was made after careful thought and consideration. We all reviewed each other’s papers and it seemed clear that the combination of Amelia getting a perfect score on the project and her subject matter being easier to adapt into a short film than the rest of ours made the choice an easy one. We put the decision to a vote and unanimously choose Amelia’s. The first meeting we had was in the library sitting in a hallway because there weren’t any seats available. We pulled information out of Amelia’s paper that would end up being the “they say” portion of our video. We also made sure we had things cited correctly and what we were taking out of her initial work was aligned with the message of the video. Amelia’s paper was fairly easy to adapt. We collaborated as a group and determined which pieces would make for the best information in our video. We choose mainly the “they say” portions of the body image and body type sections of the paper. Once we had divided the paper into subsections and identified the main points, we chose the specific facts to use. After we had chosen the particular facts we decided what would go into the script. This included a voiceover by Haris, Amelia’s interview, and the facts typed on a black screen.

If given the opportunity to do this project again I think we would have worked more on the interview with Amelia. I think if she wasn’t reading from a script and just kind of talked about her experience it would have given it a much more realistic feel. Also I wouldn’t have broken my phone because that made it much harder for me to be in touch with my group members. What I can take with me from this project is the knowledge that to coordinate an intricate project like this one take a lot of teamwork and people need to be accountable. So when I go into the workplace I will know what kind of effort it will take to solve even bigger problems and how much more I will need to be accountable to my group. Collaboration obviously helped this project because four brains are obviously better than one and since it was a very creative project having four different perspective really did make a difference. We all were able to see things in a different way which made our project a lot better.

How We filmed (Caroline)

The filming process began Tuesday April 19th. After we had written our script and generally had ideas on what we wanted to film, we met up after class at the Scales Fine Art Center to get down to business. First, we filmed Amelia walking up to a dance studio (this never actually got used in the piece, but it was a good warm-up). Next, after not being able to book a studio, we moved to a classroom upstairs where we filmed the interview of Amelia. Because she said she got nervous in front of the camera, we typed up a script so Amelia could read while she was being filmed. So as to make the setting more casual, we had her talking to someone that was presumably a few feet to the right of the camera. Next, we moved to the new gym where we could film Amelia practicing ballet. We decided we wanted an array of dances so as to have many choices while putting the film together. We played music on the speakers, and observed and filmed as Amelia put her shoes on, and began dancing. Rhetorically, we decided to place her in front of two large windows, to create a scenic background. We made all of these choices primarily based on our audience: a popular one. We decided rather than watching an interview, and reading text set to classical music for seven minutes, we could intersperse video and photos of actual ballerinas, so as to complement the information and stories.

If given the opportunity to do this project again, I think we would work on the interview with Amelia more: we had a lot of comments about her reading a script during the filming. Given the time constraints though, we decided this was a Lower Order Concern because we felt our message was driven across well enough for the audience. From this experience, I can take away the specific ways to adapt a piece of writing into film. Not only are there many rhetorical choices involved, but also many coordination issues when working with a group that requires patience and dedication.

How We Put it Together (Amelia)

Through the process of this project, our group worked together while creating the video in order to ensure that there were many perspectives. In an attempt to make the process easier, we divided the labor of the project after coming up with a thesis. This was an effective method because we found it difficult to coordinate our schedules in order to assure we were all in attendance. However, we made a choice to do all the physical recordings with all of us present because we all had different visions for the project. Looking back, I think this was a good way for us to do the project because it made sure the entire group was on the same page. In addition to this we discovered that each one of us would see something different when looking at the videos. Working as a group allowed us to peer review each other informally so we could make the best draft possible.

After we had written the script, completed the audio, and filmed the sections, Caroline, Chuck, and I pieced the video together. Due to scheduling Haris was unable to attend. One of the first decisions we made was to make the video in subsections because we wanted to make it clear for our audience what our thesis was. We also wanted to make a stark contrast between the “I say” and “they say.” We thought that me telling my stories gave the audience a personal connection and that having the actual facts written in words would add to our credibility. Some issues we had when putting this information together was narrowing it down to easily read fragments that did not lose the intent of the author or our credibility. We also had a difficult time judging how long to make each slide last to ensure everyone in the audience had time to read it. If I had a chance to go back and redo the project, I would have read the slides aloud while we were setting the time to get a slightly longer estimation.

As we were making the slides for the video we put the audio in first and then listened to what we thought would make the most sense for the visual aspect. We took many videos of me dancing, but for the beginning of the video we chose the one where I was mainly stationary because we did not want to distract the audience from our thesis. In addition to this, we kept it to the same video because we did not want it to be too visually stimulating. After we had established a background and thesis we decided that we needed to introduce me in order to ensure the audience knew that I was making my own argument. This is a tactic that I will use in the future because it really made it clear to our audience what we were trying to get across. This is similar to how we were taught to introduce our papers this semester because it gives a good background and introduces the conversation before we discuss our argument.

The subject of the audio for the video dictated the visual subject of the video. For example, we used pictures of me dancing in costume or in dance attire during the story about measurements. This gave a visual representation of the female ballet dancer culture. Another choice we made for the video was to show me getting ready to dance as I discussed the difficulty and my love of ballet because we thought viewing the dancer before the performance begins shows how much effort and time goes into being in this group. I found our choice to match the visual to the words as very effective because our script always tied back to the thesis. We spent more time trying to get our message across through the words so that our visuals only enhanced what we already had. If I ever have another video project I will create it in the same way.

The first draft of the video inadvertently omitted a conclusion. When we finished putting the pieces of the video with the arguments we never considered an ending. Within the context of this class I think it was actually a good idea to leave it out. The first peer review is what brought it to our attention. The reason I found this so constructive was our classmates told us what to put in the conclusion. They asked questions and gave ideas about what they thought it should be. This gave us the opportunity to tailor the ending to what the audience is looking for based on our argument.

I found working as a group as a very constructive experience that allowed me to see how much better a project can turn out when there are multiple ideas. Before this group experience I thought that individual projects always had better results, but now I am able to understand the significance of groups in the workplace because we can fix each other’s errors. However I do not think that this simulated the way it will be in the workplace completely because we had to work around complex schedules instead of doing the project at work. Since our group was unable to meet together as a group often I think we lost some opportunities for peer review.

How We Revised (Haris)

After the initial workshop we received important critiques about our video regarding the length, interviews, and the overall entertainment aspect of the video. We organized a time and a place that was feasible for everyone in the group to meet and work on the critiques. During this meeting, our video note taker, Amelia, focused on taking notes on the critique that was given. We discussed these issues, specifically, the introduction and accreditation of the authors, shortening the written sections of our video, breaking apart of the interview that was taken of Amelia’s experience, and finally the other main point which was to allow Amelia to introduce herself. Another aspect of this meeting was to delegate the responsibility of recording and taking down the references which were used in the video.

As a group, I believe that we did a great job of taking criticism and using it to our advantage to improve our video. We also worked efficiently toward all of the deadlines that were assigned and had representable drafts in each of our peer review sessions. This led us to be able to focus more on the video as a whole, instead of worrying at the last minute about completing the video and ignoring the main issues. It allowed us to polish our video and take out the small kinks. As we continued in the project we had a few communication hurdles but were able to overcome them, by using the resources we had. For example, Chuck’s phone broke, and this caused us to change the way we communicated. We began to email each other the information rather than rely on text completely, because we understood the situation and knew that we had to accommodate for our group member.

Upon reflection, I would have liked us to finish the paper beforehand, because it has time conflicts with everyone in the group, and that’s only because of finals taking place. Everyone has a different schedule and study habits, so it was difficult to work around those obstacles. The aspect of working in a group, has always been my kryptonite. Group work in my opinion in the past has been difficult and troublesome, but in this case it was different. Since I have come to Wake Forest University, I have noticed that all the students around me are driven to do well in class, and they will put in that extra hour, or that last page in a paper to succeed and do well. So group work in my perspective has changed quite a bit, compared to what it was in high school. In high school it was tedious to set up meetings and making sure that people got their work done. At times it is difficult for others to get their parts done, but at the end of the day, I know that my group and I have a very similar idea of what success is. This group work gave me a different perspective of what working within a team means and how well we could all function if given the right time and circumstances.

Conclusion

All of us found group work to be a very constructive experience and allowed us to see how useful it can be especially as we move into the workplace. We have been able to see how much better a project can be when we have multiple perspectives at once that allowed us to critique each other. While we found that there are some drawbacks to group work such as trying to coordinate schedules or communication problems, we all have found things that we can take on with us into the future such as patience, dedication, and accountability. As we leave Writing 111 we are taking away life skills that allow us to make better rhetorical choices and teach us to trust our member of our group. In addition to this we also learned skills on how to adapt writing to different rhetorical situations, as we did with Project 4. We hope that other students gain the opportunity to work as a group in a constructive way before going into the workplace so they can learn how to be a helpful member of a team. Even though we realize that there are many things for us to still learn about working as a group through this reflection we are able to see where our group work skills can use improvement for our future endeavors.

Amelia Mangan, Haris Shehzad, Caroline Lazarus, and Chuck Norgle