Dr. J Ferguson
University of Nevada, Reno
Spring 2018 06M18
JC Langelle
A recent essay assignment in English 102 references the video "The Power Principle, Part 3, "Apocalypse". (2010), released by Metanoia Films and directed by Scott Noble. The essay required analysis of part 3, with a focus on two minutes of the video.
Background: The film represents an effort to trace the proliferation of atomic weapons from the post-World War Two era, through various events such as the Cuban missile crisis, the fall of the Soviet Union, and at least two other non-relevant conflicts, Kosovo and Libya. Various speakers are either edited into the video or have some direct relation to its development. This essay is not interested in the cast of characters, but will focus on the technique used to purvey the message.
Narration: the soft-spoken woman's voice with the intense and varied music attempts to lull the viewer-listener into a state of semi-comatose hypnosis. One would think that presentation of the catastrophic events surrounding a nuclear detonation in a major metropolitan center would cause the narrator to be screaming in the ears of the audience. Instead, she continues throughout the video in the monotonous monotone, possibly intended by some speech expert to be the style necessary to convey the message. Here's what the overall pattern of the speech analysis looks like on the SIL Technology Speech Analyzer. (NOTE: The MP4 video was downloaded from Vimeo and converted to an MP3 file for use on the analyzer.)
The film is about 70 minutes long and jumps from speaker to news clip to what-if scenarios to direct interviews of persons, some well known, others insignificant.
Another method for analysis which allows for viewing the MP4 along with the sound file utilizes Sony's Acid Music Studio program:
In the above image we can see several functions at once including the location of the sound file at the video in time at the upper left corner along with a numerical frame reference. The image on the bottom has a notepad transcription placed in front of the program so that the text file can be analyzed as the film is running.
The transcription itself was unavailable at all of the locations where the film was located, both at Vimeo and at YouTube. A third party online source was used to decode, transcribe the text and of the two, neither provided one-hundred percent accuracy. Editing was possible on both and a timestamp on the other. Below is one done at Vocalmatic with a timestamp:
The inaccuracy in the transcription requires following along the video in the Acid MS file and making corrections, this is due to the raw transcription done by a machine. For more money, the transcription can be done by "humans"
Certainly, if there was an attempt to deceive the viewer, it may be uncovered in technical analysis such as the above, which could act as a lie-detector test for the content. Further investigation into the above process is necessary before any hard conclusions can be drawn.