Newsworld

      1. Are there any prominent symbols in the story that you read? If so, what are they and how are they used?

The largest and most obvious symbol within Newsworld is the symbol of the San Francisco Earthquake attraction as a smaller Twin Towers in New York. This is the reason they want to see it, to try to better understand what happened. Their world scope is expanding beyond their city and they’re trying to cope with it. Another symbol is the idea of the park itself. The park is a symbol of their childhood. They have memories of being young and carefree, running around and having fun. But now in the dark, the trees that were once amazing and magical now looked like ordinary trees, not park trees. “We were disappointed at how easily our childhood could be turned off, everything shut down and emptied.” They’re coming to the realization that childhood isn’t forever.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of he work with which you were able to connect.

It was difficult for me to connect with anything in the story. The one thing I did connect with was the idea that once you realize how great childhood is it’s gone. I have always been rather connected to my emotions and knew how to express them. And I don’t understand the idea of having never left a single place. As a military child I have moved every two to three years all over the country. I have visited nearly every large city and multiple countries. For the boys in this story, 9-11 is what triggered their transition from blissful ignorance to trying to understand the world around them. For me, it was much smaller. It was learning Santa wasn’t real. When my mother told my sister and I, I was devastated. It’s funny because my sister was just like “I knew it!” and she’s the younger one.  

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

I would want to adapt this into virtual reality. In virtual reality you take on the experience of a person, you play as them.  First I would change the subject matter from we – to a single person. The short film would focus on the group but there had to be one person within the said group to be the main character. You would play as the said person. You’d go through the class. To get the emotion of the setting, there would be a narrator setting the tone for specific scenes. Such as in the beginning in the classroom scene, the narrator would say. “Our emotions were mysterious to us, the fine divisions between melancholy and depression, yearning and desire.”  The narrator would say important things such as that. Descriptions of their childhood would play in cut scene flashbacks. When it was time to break in, cut scenes of what the park was like when they were kids would play intermittently in stark contrast to the dead park the player was exploring. There would be much less telling and much more showing.