"Ain't We Got Fun?"

At the production level, the cuts and the transitions create a seamless whole at the video and the audio editing. Mostly, the video and the audio cuts parallel each other in specific segments, while not throughout. For example, the rotating satellites suggests that monitoring military dangers are necessary for a society’s protection against war or, to use the popular term of the day, terrorists.

Visually, the turn from the fun and lackadaisical introduction to the militaristic imagery and citizen fears is strengthened by the audio remix. The producer traces the perception that a lassie-faire attitude toward national security can turn into fear mongering. In this mock-propaganda video the enemy takes the form of “intelligences greater than man.” Like the alien invasion films produced in the Hollywood industry, this project critiques the view that aliens would only come to Earth for destructive purposes.

Bookended by two different presentations of a public, the military scenes emphasize the emotional impact of the political and cultural commentary therein. In addition, an anxiety builds through the video for the ‘characters’ and the audience. In terms of the ‘characters,’ they seem to be worried about the emergence of this alien attack, which may or may not be visible. The audience, on the other hand, only receives markers of something otherworldly approaching by the audio. The video combines a Wag the Dog feel to a Cloverfield horror movie technique – an unseen threat meets political propaganda.

All in all, the video meets the assignment criteria by using (at least) three modes of communication, including moving images, native and non-native audio, and text. With other guidelines open, the student created a video for a digital environment, not merely to critique, but also to produce a critical awareness of the techniques used to persuade audiences. Even though the video and audio do not overtly connect, the manner in which they are organized gives the sense that they fit together.

At the conclusion, the video leaves a feeling of uncertainty with the audience. Where the fun at the beginning presents a sense of community, after the “event,” the individual is left to fend for himself, no longer able to rely on that community. As the instructor comments, the silence before the narrator says “Then … you’re on your own” highlights the emotional effects of an actuated (potential) disaster.

Vertigo is a condition that collapses the distance between us and faraway objects, it makes us unsure of what's real and what's not. Being unmoored and ill-at-ease permeates Victoria Elliott's Ain't we got fun? from the opening frame that tells us we are "somewhere in the 1950s." Without a clue to context, we are quickly dropped into a scene of giddy merriment, the kind of school carnival activities that we all want to remember but never actually experienced in such concentrated form. The sugar-rush antics of these teenagers are accompanied by an old pop tune that likewise everyone vaguely recalls but probably can't name. It deftly catches the mood of this wholesome American rite of passage while simultaneously alerting the viewer to the intense artificiality and creepy undertones of what is obviously an "instructional" film for young adults. The kind of viewing experience that many of us have experienced in one way or another and most likely want to forget. 

Our perception that all ain't well with the world is literally mixed into focus as the chirpy music is drowned under ominous voices. Footage of teenagers eating cotton candy is replaced by air-raids, escape drills, and even mock hydrogen bomb explosions. British voices remind us of radio broadcasts from the world wars; the images speak to a world forever changed by the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Without doubt, the shrill sense of anxiety that permeated the carnival scene is now a full-blown hysteria attack. Drenched in echo, dislocated phrases bleed across this nightmarish montage of innocence destroyed, out of sync with the visuals, but marching to the beat of the end of the world.