Carly's FST495 Blog: January 2017

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Week 3 Reflection

This week we did all of the pre-production work for the presentation. I've made exactly one budget before; however, I feel like I've learned a lot from that experience and was able to go more in-depth and cover more ground on this budget. Luckily, Jordan did a lot of research on the type of equipment we would need so she sent me a list of possible equipment that I was then able to research and add into the budget. I think it's a bit terrifying to see the amount of money we would have had to spend had it not been all from UNCW. From the budget, it was obvious that we wouldn't need any additional fundraising because the only thing that would be coming out of pocket was gas money for the few trips we take to Cumberland County and that's easily split amongst the crew.

The other portion of the producer's work was making a schedule, which we've been building since week one. We have each crew member's class and work schedule (color-coded) as well as all the due dates for the class. The only issue is we have large amounts of time blocked off for each portion of the project because our schedules are changing so rapidly that we can't come up with a specific time this far in advance. However, we are really good at communicating with each other and getting things done on time so as long as we plan out each week as it comes along, we should be set.

The schedule was extremely beneficial to make because it reminded me that we have B-roll due next week so I was able to put in that we have to request equipment well in advance in order to pick it up on Friday (and we already submitted that request so we're right on track). Probably the biggest struggle is figuring out stylistic components for sound (because I'm also acting as sound on this project). I have about zero experience with sound and will have to do a lot of research regarding how I want it to sound because it's not overtly obvious to me at this point.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Interview Subjects

Tobacco Control Coordinator - Kate Uslan

Kate Uslan is the Tobacco Control Coordinator for the Mecklenberg County Health Department, working to enhance the health of its citizens. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Uslan is a regular writer for “The Alliance for a Healthier Generation” and proud mother of two young boys.

What is your role as tobacco control coordinator?
What are your personal opinions on tobacco use?
What has tobacco control accomplished in recent years?
What are your personal ties to tobacco control?
Why do you feel passionate about tobacco control?
What are your end goals as tobacco control coordinator?
What do you feel the public’s opinion is on smoking today?
Do you feel like the overall opinion on tobacco has changed drastically?
Why do you think people continue to smoke despite widespread accessible information about health concerns related to tobacco?
How have you taught your own kids about tobacco use?

Healthcare Professional - Marilyn Graham

Marilyn Graham is the Director of Nursing at Tammy Lynn Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, which provides education, community and support services for children and adults with developmental disabilities.

What is your job title?
Why did you decide to become a healthcare professional?
What impact has the decrease in smokers had on the health of the public in the last few decades?
What do you think is the public's perception of smoking, and do you think it’s changed in recent years?
Why do you think people continue to smoke despite widespread public knowledge of tobacco health risks?
How did your opinion on tobacco evolve after becoming a health professional?
What impact do you think you have on your loved ones because you are a healthcare professional?
As a North Carolinian how do you feel about how prevalent the tobacco industry is here?
How do you think tobacco farming has affected the the thoughts of people in this state?
Have you ever smoked?

If so,

Do you still smoke? Why or why not?
Did becoming a health professional guide you in any of these decisions?

If not,

Do you think this was guided by your interest in the health profession even before you were a part of it?

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Concept Research

I started off looking through past documentaries that have been made centered around tobacco. The majority of them covered negative health effects of cigarettes such as "The Tobacco Conspiracy" and "Passion for Cigarettes". "Addicted to Pleasure: Tobacco" looked at the addictive qualities of tobacco, historically in the British empire and specifically how they are being made more and more addictive. I found two documentaries that were closer to where we were aiming to go, so I feel like it would be beneficial to watch those and make sure we don't cover the same kind of information. "Farming in the Black Patch" looks at why farmers have stayed loyal to tobacco despite the public's increasingly negative opinions toward smoking and "Bright Leaves" deals with tobacco farms in North Carolina and the workers dealing with society's changed attitudes toward smoking. "We Love Cigarettes" looks more through cross-cultural tobacco beliefs, which is probably where I'm more interested, and covers smoking bans in the US and Europe that made it so 1/3 of the world's cigarettes are smoked in China and globally the tobacco industry is still growing strong as a result of this outsourcing.

As I said in class, when I studied abroad in Wales the most jarring aspect was the attitudes toward smoking. I hardly ever see people smoking in the U.S., but in the UK it's extremely prevalent. You have to walk through a cloud of smoke before entering any building and despite the mandatory "smoking kills" warning on their bags of tobacco, it never seems deter anyone from actually smoking. Looking into cross-cultural tobacco beliefs, I found that currently Bhutan is the only country where tobacco is actually illegal. However, even before the ban, only about 1% of its population actually smoked. Tobacco is not grown in Bhutan and it costs a lot to import goods, so prior to the ban interest in cigarettes was already dwindling. In English-speaking countries, smoking prevalence declined after the implementation of tobacco control but has hardly changed since the 1990's. Tobacco control is a priority area under the World Health Organization (WHO), which addresses the health effects of tobacco.

For the next portion I kind of did just free word association and made a list of things that I thought about when I thought about tobacco. Neither of my parents smoke but my mom remembers when she was younger and they stopped allowing ads for cigarettes on the television and they had one night where they just played a bunch of cigarette ads back to back as a final hurrah. My dad often talks about a Kurt Vonnegut quote, "Here's the news: I am going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks. Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown & Williamson have promised to kill me. But I am eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats." Other than that I mostly just think of movies and television series. Like Mad Men dealing with Lucky Strike and "The Insider" during my Al Pacino phase. Recently I watched "Thank You For Smoking" which brought up how cigarettes are kind of marketed to people, which was also incredibly interesting to me.

I then started looking at tobacco in popular culture. Hollywood used to glamorize smoking such as "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Rebel Without A Cause" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Cigarettes used to pay to be a part of movies (product placement) until the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1998, although smoking is still prevalent in films, whether obvious or not. There have since been changing attitudes toward smoking and movies seem to be mirroring this trend. For example, "Stranger than Fiction" shows a character smoking but also makes it a point to have them coughing and hacking, reducing the glamorous association with smoking and tobacco.

I then looked into specifically North Carolina tobacco farming and negative effects that this changing public opinion has had on farmers and the industry as a whole. North Carolina has been and continues to be the largest producer of tobacco in the country but China is the number one grower of tobacco in the world (with the largest amount of consumers). Since the Great Depression there have been government imposed production limits on tobacco farms and as a result a lot of the industry has been taken over by foreign growers. There has also been a significant drop in number of tobacco farmers for the last decade, partly due to e-cigs and the challenges they impose upon the tobacco industry. Although since that article, it seems that vaping has surpassed the challenge that e-cig's created for the industry.

References