Choose a classmate's product

Being that I am a fan of sports and video games I chose the "Starting 5" video game.

The market for this game would be children (six year olds and up), all the way up to college-aged young adults. Since this is a wide area to cover in advertising I would attack the audience in two different ways. For the younger demographic I would advertise on children television networks and shows such as Nickelodeon's SpongeBob Squarepants and Disney's Hannah Monatana. Commericials in between these shows would be a perfect way to have kids telling their parents "I want that!"

For the college aged demographic, sporting events and ESPN are the perfect areas to exploit. Sports fans will obviously be watching sporting events and or ESPN. If the commercial does it's job in looking entertaining we should spark some interest among fans.

A smart release date would be mid-October. This is when all four major sports are in season and also gives consumers plenty of time to provide positive feedback to friends and family before holiday shopping starts.

I think this game has potential. The concept is unique and fresh and I could see a game developer such as EA Sports releasing it in the future. As a gamer and sports fan I would be eager to try out the game.

The game should be arcade-like, not realistic. I could see the Wii system really developing an awesome game for diehard fanatics or family members who are just casually interested. This would be a perfect game for parties or small groups of friends hanging out, much like Rock Band has become popular at high school and college parties.

With a few tweaks I think Starting 5 could become a successful video game franchise. The formula that made the Madden Football's and NBA Jam's become very popular in the past is here, as well.

2 Movie Pitches

Think you are safe inside your dreams? Think again.

Inception is the ultimate heist movie, telling the story of a man who goes inside powerful men's dreams in order to extract secrets from their unconscious minds. Our protagonist Dominic Cobb -- the dream thief -- however, is running from a past that he cannot escape.

You see he and his wife, Mal, once created a dream world where they happily lived for 50 years. Dom however, grew tired of the dream and longed for reality again. Desperate, he convinced Mal to wake herself up. Once she did however she was certain she was still dreaming. Obsessed on returning to "limbo" (the dream world) she loses track of real life and becomes suicidal, thinking it will bring her back to limbo.

Eventually, Mal loses control and frames Dom for her own murder, thinking he will have no choice but to join her in death. She jumps off a hotel ledge committing suicide, leaving authorities to believe Dom killed her. Horrified, he flees the country to avoid a certain prison sentence, leaving his two children behind.

Dom, while working outside the country, runs into an extremely powerful business man who promises he can have his murder charges dropped with one phone call, as long as he can perform "Inception" on a business rival. Longing to see his two kids again, Dom has no choice but to accept the proposal. Now, with a small team of experts, Dom must do something he has only donce once before and that time led to Mal's suicide. Can he perform Inception and see his children again or will Mal break through his subconscious and ruin everything? Or will Dom realize he has dreamed the whole thing up?

This movie will have plenty of action and have the audience on edge wondering what is happening throughout. The element of dreaming gives the director a limitless amount of directions to take the story and an infinite amount of potential drama and suspense. Our main character is perfect example of the scarred experienced hero. The audience will long for him to be reunited with his children after hearing the depressing details of his tragic past.

Inception is directed towards more mature audiences who are quick enough to understand what is unfolding in our complex story. A large budget will be needed for all of the CG to design the ever changing lack of reality dreams have.

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Superbad is a comedy for young adults. It follows two high-school senior losers who long to lose their virginity before they graduate. This movie is meant to be not taken too seriously and be full of jokes and laughs throughout. Our two main characters will go on a day-long adventure which has many set backs that restrict them from getting to the biggest party of the school year. Eventually, they arrive at the party, relieved and excited. However, things soon turn from great to worse as the cops show up and bust the party. Will the boys lose their virginity or will they become the losers they feared they would be when they started high school?

This movie budget will not have to be large at all. It will take place in normal town, USA and not require any CG or anything that will drain funding. The actors needed should be up and coming stars who the audience may not immediately recognize therefore giving the viewers the impression these are really high school students.

The story's main goal is to invoke laughter and be relatable for many other high school or former high school students.

Memento: Linear or Non-Linear?

The psychological thriller Memento is a movie that uniquely stands out from its Hollywood peers. It is told in reverse -- end to beginning -- keeping the viewer in suspense throughout. This ingenious twist makes the watcher feel as if they also have the main character Leonard's condition of short term memory loss. Because of its different presentation style many wrongly suggest that Memento is a non-linear story, but this is not true.

Memento is completely linear and actually more linear than regular movies. Every scene leads into the next, without the future scene we would have no idea what was unfolding in the scene we just watched. Missing one scene could lead to not understanding the entire movie. For those reasons every scene is vital that it be in order. While it is not beginning to end like most linear stories, it is cleverly linear just end to beginning.

The director of the movie himself, Christopher Nolan even stated that the movie is linear and those who think that Memento is not are misinformed.

Product Proposal

My product revolves around mothers and their babies. The concept of my idea is pacifiers that have nutrients inside the nipple -- the same sort of nutrients you'd find in Flinstone Vitamins -- when the baby sucks on the pacifier a small amount of healthy liquid comes out. The amount must be very small to prevent any sort of choking hazard. The end of nipple would have a small slit that allowed only a swallowable amount of liquid to be secreted at a time.

My pacifier would be all one piece but the front portion -- that is not sucked -- would have an attached lid where you would insert the vitamin capsule. Kids (moms probably) would have their choice of their favorite characters such as Dora the Explorer or Spongebob to choose from. The characters' faces would go where the lid to insert the capsules is. My product would have only the best and most proven nutrients for youngsters to grow up healthy and strong.

While the product is intended to be used by babies between the ages of 0-4, the demographic that would be buying the pacifier is 16 to 45 year old mothers. Basically, it is for any parent who wants their child to get the proper nutrition while they use a pacifier.

No particular lifestyle would be singled out. Every type of parent should have the pacifier, rich, poor, Caucasion, Hispanic, -- whatever walk of life you're from -- it encourages the growth and development of our children.

The target way of advertising would be through magazines, internet articles, commercials, and billboards.

Women's magazines, specifically ones that deal with newborns would be an ideal place to have advertisements. Internet articles through the media such as online newspapers written by journalists promoting the product would be a good way of spreading positive feedback. Commercials during shows that women usually watch on networks that are typically women oriented -- Lifetime, Grey's Anatomy -- is how I would attack the television market.

Billboards that are located near hospitals is another way of subliminally getting into parent's heads that they need this product. Typically, mothers who are expecting make quite a few trips to and from the hospital in the 9 months of pregnancy and following years after birth.

A sponsor could be a famous mother who recently just had a baby that other mothers look up to. If she came out an said "I endorse this product because it is amazing" people would look into what she was talking about.

I would sell my product at the same price as regular pacifiers. Parents would be forced to at least try the pacifier if it's priced the same as competitors.

Two sites, same article

The Washington Post and the Washington Times are typically the left leaning and right leaning newspapers of the DC area. I thought it'd be interesting to see how each reported the heated political debate over the repeal of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

For starters the online versions of the newspapers have nearly identical headlines and both chose Lady Gaga as the article's picture. The Washington Post used "Judge halts 'Don't ask don't tell' policy" and uses this interesting picture of Lady Gaga.

While the Washington Times went with "Judge orders stop to 'don't ask, don't tell policy'" which is essentially a paraphrasing of what the Post said. The Times used a picture of Gaga that portrayed her little more normally, with this

In the pictures, the Times has Gaga looking an honest, calm politician swearing to the tell the whole truth and the Post has her looking like a heated, angry protestor who will stop at nothing until this gets repealed. Each chose her as the symbolic mascot of the "Don't ask, don't tell" debate because she is the most recognizable person that has spoke out against it. The newspapers just go about showing her in different ways.

The lead ins for both stories include the main details. One addresses the Obama administration's injuction rejection and the other lists how long the ban on openly gay troops has been. From this point on it is mostly the same information and quotes just in a slightly different order based off of what the journalist thought was most important.

Despite the Post being considered a "Liberal leaning" newspaper and the Times being the "Conservative sided" paper I could not find any bias in either of the stories which surprised me.

However if you looked close enough you could find some bias. The Post's story includes multiple pictures of the Lady Gaga speech and has an interactive gallery to look through, the Times has one picture.

The Post's article is considerabley longer compared to the Times' story with the Post an entire two pages compared to the Times page and a quarter story.

The bias may be that the Times would not like to cover this story as much as the Post because on a Website there is unlimited space to provide pictures and articles but the Times chooses not to include them.

Two other biases outside the article were on the Times site. They included a link to notorious right leaning Fox News who they are labled as "partners." There is also a poll question after the article asking about the "Tea Party" and Republicans.

Other than those noticable differences in length, variety of pictures, and outside influences, the presentations of the stories are very similiar and as a reader I would have not gotten anything different out of one article that I didn't get from reading the other. Both stories serve their purpose and inform me on a current political event.

The links to the Post is here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101206145_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010101407183

The Times here http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/12/judge-orders-stop-dont-ask-dont-tell-policy/?page=1

War of the Worlds- Personal Reaction

The year is 1938, Europe is tense with war looming in the future. Man is still 30 years away from walking on the moon and the telephone is not yet a common household appliance. Radio serves as the one medium that can provide people with up to the minute information on everything going on in the world. So if you were ask to me, “How would have you reacted from the ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast?” I would answer “Full of manic panic.”

First off, I live in New Jersey about 50 miles away from New York City and a drivable distance – even in those days – from Grovers Mill. To say this story hit close to home, is a pun intended.

Many of those listeners, who did misinterpret the story as an alien invasion, missed the disclaimer in the beginning stating it was just a show. If I had done the same, I would have had little doubt what I was hearing was true for a variety of reasons: In those days radio listeners were not accustomed to hearing “We interrupt this program…” and then receiving a fake news report. People believed what they were listening to was true, so I believe I would have done the same.

The acting, sound effects, and overall production are all great quality. Even by today’s standards, the on-air reporting was totally believable, which is another reason why I would have believed the story to be valid. To hear masses of people yelling, police officials issuing Marshall Law, and news that people are dying by the hundreds is news that you cannot ignore.

By the point of the police’s Marshall Law in Mercer County I would have left my home and went to my neighbor’s house to discuss what was unfolding – which probably would have caused me to miss one of the announcements that this was all just an acted out story.

From a person living in the future’s perspective, the lack of communication would have been frustrating. Going to my neighbor’s house or calling the police station is about all I could do to verify if what was happening was real.

The reason’s I would have been full of manic panic is because it was not out of the question for another country, like Germany, to invade, especially in the New Jersey region. The world had just experienced World War I and was about to go into a second world war. This was a generation of people used to invasions and violence from other lands. It was not out of the realms of possibilities that this wasn’t an alien attack, but rather a declaration of war by a foreign country.

Once the eyewitnesses came forward and declared it was “invaders from Mars” I would have been even more terrified. This was in a time when we were still decades away from going into space and exploring the final frontier. We didn’t know that much about space and we didn’t know if any kind of life was in our solar system. Our capabilities as a global society to fight off these creatures would have been futile.

That point would only be backed up further when the reports of the machines tearing through the cities came in. A feeling of helplessness would have come over me.
It would not have taken long for me to act after listening to this report. I am an overly cautious person so my first instinct would have been to evacuate my family to the safest spot I could think of. I probably would have rounded up my family, packed up all the necessary belongings and started heading north -- away from the major cities like New York and Philadelphia. I would not have known where I was going, hysteria probably would have taken over my body. However, I would have left the car radio on so I could keep track of where these machines were moving. Because of that by some point, in the all the mania, I probably would’ve realized via the end of the show, another radio station, or my neighbors that it was all a planned hoax. This news probably would’ve made me feel an overwhelming amount of relief, anger, and embarrassment.

The Orson Welles radio broadcast would have not only tricked me but it would have sent me into a frightened panic of mania just like it did for many other listeners, tuning in on that infamous night.

Left Side Vs. Right Side of Brain

After reading what a left sided and right sided mind was, there was little doubt what I am. Logical, reality-based thinking makes me a left sided based mind. The way I solve problems is by anaylzing, taking some time to deliberate, and using the most reasonable answer. I find it easier to be organized by making lists of things I need to do so I can check them off as I complete them. My personality is predominately left sided. I crave schedules and organization so I can finish all of my tasks on time. While many of my traits lean to the left I also have right sided qualities. Like right sides, I need to see and feel certain problems, just hearing about it does not help. I am also very creative. I will think outside the box and come up with solutions that others did not think of. I think it is better to be balanced than too much left or right. The advantages to being balanced mean you have both perspectives and are more prepared to handle any problem that life throws at you.