Mrs. Boudreau’s Notes on the documentary Schooled: The Price of College Sports

• Engaging Opening Sequence: Emotionally appealing, landscape shots, “pump up” audience
• Title of Film
• Voiceover of children playing sports
• Introduce interviewee
• Voiceover--Thesis or Main Argument of Film---show examples of those who are being subjugated to the unfair treatment of a larger entity
• Introduce a main interviewee--College athlete--show them on their campus, basic interview questions, show them i their normal life, then ask more focus questions having to do with your thesis or hypothesis (NCAA questions, revenue questions)
• Convincing Statistics intertwined with sympathetic information on athlete (athlete can’t afford groceries, tuition payments etc. VS video game money and head coach salaries)
• SLOWMOTION vs FASTMOTION camera techniques
• Story Anecdotes: Athlete deaths, living in poverty--persuasive techniques because it emotionally appeals to the audience who most likely is living the way the athletes or the athletes families are
• Infographics to present profound info: Persuasive techniques
• Definition of Amateur
• Rogerian Style Argument Begins---College athletes are just amateur athletes
• Historical Background
• KEY Events that affect the SUBJECT of the film: Conference--Schools vs. Journalists against the NCAA “fraud”--the athletic director and president
• Can’t have the “Animals running the zoo”--argument of those opposed to paying college athletes
• Panel of “student-athlete” post game ESPN interviews
• “Student-Athletes” is a misnomer--missing many classes for games
• Opposing Sides are represented: Athletic Directors, School President
• Newspaper clippings with zoom-in on titles
• Clips of people speaking at events--not necessarily the “intellectual” work of documentary makers--you need to get permission to use material like this
• Juxtaposition of opposing sides interviewees
• News Station Clips: Showing the development of the problem in contemporary media--this supports the purpose of the documentary. These aren’t just crazy people, other people are seeing the same problem.
• Why do athletic directors and college presidents oppose even acknowledging these discussions? Money?
• Voiceover with clips of presidents and chancellors giving speeches (taking them out of the positive context and showing what they are really doing)
• Transitions used between different topics of documentary
• Music and sound
• Analogy used to compare NCAA to oil companies: Analogies used to explain the how this problem is like a problem that other people can relate to
• Substantial research, both first and second hand, needed for a persuasive documentary
• Various interviewees--covering all spans of problem
• “not because they are amateurs, it’s because you don’t want to pay them”
• “Plantation Mentality” the rewards belong to the overseers and supervisors, the college owns the body and what trickles down after that can go to the athletes. Amateur code now based on a foregone philosophies, pure economic philosophies will not outstand the law
• Second half of film: work towards a solution, even if the solution is in the process, and offer ways for audience watching to work towards a solution
• Solution: give athletes a voice at the table, acknowledge that we are all part of the problem