I spent a long time considering different topics for my video project. Although I was very interested in researching the prevalence of oppression and bias created by algorithms and platforms, I ultimately decided to create a remix video illustrating the necessity and hardships healthcare workers are facing amid the Coronavirus pandemic. While there are many different angles I could have taken in my video, I chose to highlight the difficulties that clinicians in particular are facing for two different reasons — my parents and my hometown. As a Journalism major who is the child of an Emergency room physician and Orthopedic surgeon, I am constantly consuming different forms of news about the latest updates on the virus. While my family and I are extremely cautious when we leave the house, always wearing masks and practicing social distancing measures, our community is not. On April 17th, Huntington Beach, California had a group of more than 100 people demonstrating against stay at home orders. The weekend of April 25th and April 26th, more than 40,000 people flocked to the Newport Beach and Huntington Beach to enjoy the weather, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom to issue a state-ordered Orange County beach closure. In response, Huntington Beach and San Clemente are suing Newsom, and hundreds of protestors are gathering to demonstrate against the ban today, May 1st.
The result of increased social interaction in Orange County is evident — the amount of diagnosed cases of Coronavirus surpassed 2,100 after last weekend’s beach parties. While neighboring counties like Los Angeles are seeing cases decrease as a result of strict social distancing measures, the amount of cases in Orange County are rising steadily into May.
Looking at everything that is happening in Huntington Beach while I am home with my family, I have felt many different emotions — but most of all I have been confused. I cannot seem to wrap my head around why people will not abide by the social distancing measures, even when the cases in Orange County continue to climb. This confusion inspired the narrative of my video. For the first minute or so of the video, I highlight different demonstrations that are protesting social distancing measures happening around the country. Then, I switch the discussing healthcare workers, which I focus on for the rest of the video. I found clips of very emotional and personal testimonials from nurses, in addition to very telling photos, such as pictures of people’s scars and bruises from wearing N95 masks for prolonged periods.
In my call to action at the end of the video, rather than explicitly listing ways that people can better respect healthcare workers, I turned to visuals that communicate the same message. I included a picture of a packed beach in Newport Beach, California with the date: April 25th, 2020. Following that picture, I inserted a picture of Mike Pence at the Mayo Clinic on April 28th as the only person in the entire hospital not wearing a mask. My goal here was to take advantage of the visual component of the video and effectively get same the message across.
The final detail I included was a voiceover of a nurse talking about her duty as a medical professional right now. I divided the audio clip to include sections at the beginning and end of the video, so she bookends my voiceover work in the middle. At the end, she is talking about how she needs to hold on to the hope that people will do better to get through her shifts, but means “do better” in the context of people recovering from the virus. I took that “do better” quote that she used, and repurposed it at the end to communicate the idea that we should do better for our healthcare workers.
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