Courtney Becker, Megan Crowley, and Madeline Weinberger

Dr. Erin McLaughlin

Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric
2 November 2015
Walkers: Get Out of the Way
When our group first came together to discuss what the subject of our PSA would be, we
all very quickly gravitated toward using a Horatian approach to discuss the many bikers on
campus. We first went through each of our lists of potential topics, but throughout the discussion
we consistently leaned toward poking fun at bikers. None of us bike to our classes, and have
each experienced frustration at one point or another with someone riding a bike. One story about
a bike collision particularly stood out. A couple of weeks ago, a girl was riding her bike down the
middle of a path another group of girls was crossing. Instead of moving, slowing down, or just
stopping, the biker continued on her chosen path, briefly ringing her bell at an attempt to alert the
girls that she was coming. When the two collided, the biker flew over the handlebars and hurt
herself, and blamed the girl walking by, who hadnt seen the biker approaching, for the accident.
As a group, we thought it was interesting that people thought the girl on the bike had the right of
way in this situation instead of the girl walking by, and decided to focus on what we perceive to
be the issue of biker privilege.
Once we decided on our topic, we discussed how to approach the subject in our PSA. We
all liked the idea of using certain aspects of the juvenalian rape PSA, but in a much more fun and
lighthearted way. Victim blaming was one of the most significant aspects of the juvenalian PSA
we incorporated into our own PSA. In fact, our entire PSA centered on the idea that walkers are
at fault if they get hit by bikers, when in reality the bikers are the ones who should be most aware

of their surroundings. We also decided to use many of the comedic aspects of the Horatian PSA,
such as physical comedy, which is on display when a walker dives out of the way of a biker on
the path. Additionally, we wanted to play up some of the more traditional aspects of serious
PSAs, so we decided to shoot the narrator in front of a plain background, play somber music in
the background at the beginning and end of the video, and film interviews with people other than
the narrator in front of the Golden Dome, an iconic Notre Dame interview spot on campus.
While writing the script and storyboard, we had bikers in mind as the intended audience
and wanted to make it clear that our praise of bikers and derogatory tone toward walkers is
meant sarcastically. We achieved this by adding in several lines of exaggeration, as well as
responding to a very reasonable counterargument in a very unreasonable way. We say that
instead of holding bikers responsible for crashes, walkers should watch where theyre going
because the bikers may be traveling at such high speeds that they cant see their surroundings or
completing other tasks as they ride, causing them to lose control of their steering abilities. Most
people watching our video would understand that this is a ridiculous argument and that in each of
those situations, if a crash were to occur, the biker would be at fault. We hoped that if a biker
were to watch our PSA, he or she would listen to these arguments and realize that expecting
someone walking by to dive out of the way of an irresponsible biker is unfair, and that he or she
should be more conscious of his or her surroundings while biking. We also stuck to a traditional
PSA format during the writing process by interspersing interviews with a biker amongst the
narrators dialogue, making the situation seem more desperate than it actually is, and reporting
made up statistics to the audience in an attempt to make our argument seem stronger than it
actually is.

Our biggest problem during filming was the weather on the day we shot our outdoor
footage. It was a very windy and slightly rainy day, so it is much more difficult to hear Madeline
during her dialogue outside than it is to hear Courtney when she is speaking in the One Button
Studio. Even though Madeline was speaking very loudly during her scenes, she is partially
drowned out by the sound of the wind. Because of the subject of our PSA and the script we
wrote, we couldnt get any footage over fall break so we had to shoot everything when we
returned, and since our schedules are so different, the windy day was the only day that worked
for all of us to get together to film. The problem with the windy background noise was
unavoidable. In addition to the wind problem, though, the microphone on the iPad isnt as high
quality as the one used in the One Button Studio, so even without the wind it would most likely
still be difficult to hear Madeline speaking during her scenes. The volume difference during
filming made the transitions between narration and interviews, or interviews and music, more
jarring because Madelines dialogue seems so much quieter than the noise throughout the rest of
the video.
Aside from the lower volume, the iPad footage created some other editing problems when
we put together the video. To better fit everything we had wanted to fit into the frame, we had
shot the iPad footage vertically. When we loaded the clips onto WeVideo, however, we found
that the footage did not fill the screen, which was something we hadnt foreseen. We fit the clips
to the screen to fix this problem, filling the screen while cutting off large parts of the shot, such
as the top of the Golden Dome in the interview shots taken on God Quad, and making the
footage very pixelated and grainy. The shot where this is the biggest problem is the one of the
person riding his bike through South Quad as he zips up his jacket and swerves because he has
taken his hands off the handlebars. In the original version, his hands coming off the handlebars to

zip his jacket and his subsequent swerve are very clear, but they became less so when we edited
the clip into the PSA. This disappointed us because the moment fits into our argument very well,
but in the end we decided that the more pixelated version of the shot was actually more
aesthetically pleasing than the smaller, vertical version of the shot.
We added music to the PSA once we were done editing the video because Musical
notation and performance constitute a symbol system, one that employs roles, markings, sound,
key, harmony and rhythm to communicate meanings (Herrick 6). The slow, somber music that
opens and closes our video enhances the faux-seriousness of the PSA. We took a classic PSA
technique, using a sad piece of music to convey the magnitude of a problem, and poked fun at
the supposed problem the video addresses. The jaunty, fast music underscoring the sped-up bike
ride from Badin Hall to South Dining Hall highlights the ridiculousness of the bikers decision to
bike from her dorm to the dining hall, which is located directly across the path. Finally, we chose
to play reverent music alongside the clip of the new bikers of the day, because we felt it
conveyed the message that the bikers at Notre Dame are esteemed and privileged members of
society, but in a way that again pointed out the absurdity of this idea.
We do believe that our PSA can be labeled as satire because The satirist is not content
with the world as it is; or more precisely, he is not content with the world as it is; or, more
precisely, he is not content with certain things in it, which to him seem black. In his attack he
blackens them yet further, in the hope that after blushing with due shame they will turn white
(Ziv 40). We think that the treatment of pedestrians by bikers on campus is black, and blackened
it further in our video by exaggerating the behaviors and opinions of students who bike at Notre
Dame. We hope that the video causes some bikers to be embarrassed at the exaggerated behavior
on display in the PSA and pay more attention to walkers in the future (Ziv 40).

Works Cited
Herrick, James A. "An Overview of Rhetoric." The History and Theory of Rhetoric. 2nd ed.
Boston: Allyn and Beacon, 2001. N. pag. Print.
Ziv, Avner. "The Social Function of Humor in Interpersonal Relationships." Soc Society 47.1
(2009): 11-18. Print.