http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOoIcuA-0A4&feature=related
Ben Bahn is an incredible storyteller. He produces stories that are incredibly entertaining as well as rich in ASL structure and grammar. In class I have been stressing the importance of placement. Placement and how we use space in ASL is crucial for the receivers to understand who or what you are discussing. I have selected a clip that uses several classifiers and placement. I also want you to notice eye gaze, body language, body shift, facial expressions, and vocabulary. All of these things together will help you become more fluent. Additionally, all of these things will help you with our Dear Abby unit and in creating your music video.
Please answer the following questions.
1. What did you notice about how the space was used in the story? How did he use space?
2. How did Ben shift from character to character?
3. What facial expressions were used and what did they mean?
4. What vocabulary was used?
5. What did this teach you?
He did a really good job showing motion/action. He did this by utilizing space. By moving his body the way he did, he created a moving story.
ReplyDeleteHe shifted from character to character by using different Classifiers, facial expressions and also mouth morphemes for the movement of each character. This made it easy to identify who was who. I especially liked the fat lady. Very funny.
He didn't use a lot of vocabulary. It was mostly classifiers. He did use woman, boy, girl, ball, bike, rollerskate, old woman, bird, get-up.
This taught me that you can tell a story with little vocab if you are very expressive and use space efficiently
He did an excellent job using space to show the ball and everything that was following it. He used a lot of space around him to show movement and the different people/things.
ReplyDeleteHe shifted from character to character by using different facial expressions and classifiers. His facial expressions were very entertaining and helped identify the new classifiers. Most of his facial expression was used to show how people reacted when they saw everyone following the ball.
Most of the vocabulary he used was basic because he used classifiers and movement of the classifiers for most of his story. He used signs like ball, boy, door, bike, girl, old, man, bird, woman, and get-up.
This story taught me how important spacial organization, facial expression, and explaining through movement of classifiers is when it comes to signing.
This was a great video to watch to see how a story can be created with few actual words. Ben did such a great job with classifiers and using space to his advantage to make the story come to life.
ReplyDeleteI also really appreciated his use of facial expressions as the previous comments have noted. He definitely lets loose during the story and knows that he is adding dimensions of understanding to it.
Ben really used all the space he had available to him. The entire frame of the shot was used. What I found very interesting is how he actually used the space. I liked how he used the space to create an upward and downward hill.
ReplyDeleteTo shift characters, Ben just switched classifiers. What I noticed was he did a sign that looked like stuck, but it wasn't. But he signed this every time before a new character started to chase the ball. He also switched facial grammer to portray the character he was representing.
The only vocab that was actually used was ball, scientist, girl (on rollerblades), boy (on a bike), dog, and woman (who was fat), get-up, and door. It is so crazy how a story can be so clear by just using classifiers.
This story has taught me that facial expressions and placement can really help you tell a story and get your point across. It also taught me that if you have "theatrical" experience you could and should be able to tell a story will little to no vocab.
This was a great story! And I was happy because i was able to understand it all haha.
ReplyDeleteHis use of classifiers and facial expression made the whole story because if he didn't use classifiers you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between the different characters, and if he didn't have good facial expression this would have been a very boring story.
And like amanda said he used his whole frame and took up all the space, so he was able to show the hill and valley that the characters went through, which i thought was clever.
Lindsey
The story was kind of weird I thought ha. I’m not quite sure how this ball was created. I think I saw chemicals or science teacher but it was very cool to see how he put it all together.
ReplyDeleteHe was very good with classifiers and very good at showing what was what and what was happening next. He was able to shift from each new character very easily with just the way his body and eyes had moved. The movements were noticeably large but not distractingly large, but you could see clearly how he was using space to character shift.
Another thing that made it even more clearly was with his facial grammar. You could tell when he was a bird or the grouchy lady and so on. He would make a small opening for the bird, puff his checks and just look “hard to move” when he was the big lady. Another example was when the ball was first created. You could see how his face really showed that it was a ball.
He shifted the way the characters moved down the street such as going around a corner up a hill and then going down the hill. He would show how fast each of the characters moved by the speed of his characters following the ball. He would open his mouth corresponding to the sounds they would make as they chased the ball. More action and classifier stuff rather than vocabulary I think. Oh and this taught me to not follow the ball because you will crash into a door in the end =D
-Jeff
When he was telling his story he didn't use space like we have been talking about in class. He set up the person then used classifiers afterwards to show who he was talking about. When he used facial expression it showed me how the persons facial expression. For example the fat man was struggling to chase the ball so his expression was a struggling one. It seemed to me that he was using mouth morphines. He didn't use much vocab. A lot of his story was told using CL. I saw bike, boy, girl, ball and door. This helped me to realize that being expressive really helps tell the story and that you don't always have to tell a story using vocab. If you use the right CL and expression the story can get told in a different way then if you just use vocab.
ReplyDeleteI like the story because there is very basic vocabulary in this story
ReplyDelete1. he used all the space in area, and kept everybody in a straight line, and also set up all the the characters.
2. he shifts with people through facial expression
3. He used the facial expression to separate all the characters
4. there arent to much vocabulary it almost all classifiers
5. the story let me know to keep everything in order with your story,
jazmine scott
That story was super cute. :)
ReplyDelete1. I noticed that he always went left to right on the screen, and using his arm and the road kept everything in order. I didn't set people up like we learned to in class.
2. He shifted characters by changing his facial expression. When he introduced a new character he went to the center, but then he kept them in order.
3. Lots of facial expressions were used. An excited one for the boy, grumpy for the old man, etc.
4. His vocab was actually really limited. He used a lot of classifiers and facial expressions to convey his story.
5. I learned that stories are not only more entertaining, but easier to understand, if the story teller uses lots of mouth morphemes and classifiers.
I really have nothing else to comment on because we all pretty much saw the same thing. I think it is good that we are all seeing the same thing and understanding what he is saying. I am excited to learn even more this year.
ReplyDeleteI agree with emily... I dont' have anything to ad... Oh actually I wanted to comment on Jeff's post :) I think that you are right about the senario.... I think its suppose to be like the movie flubber. Have you ever seen it? well if not watch it. It might assist with understanding this story :)
ReplyDeleteI’d have to say that Morgan’s last comment is very true and accurate. I didn’t think of it really all in that context but it does help us understand significantly. Also by using classifiers it does make it interesting like Morgan said. Classifiers are hard to use but if we can be as good with them as Ben was then like Morgan said, our signing will be more entertaining and much easier to understand. It’s cool to see that similar miming features can give additional understanding in the ASL language.
ReplyDeleteO my gosh! I never even thought of Flubber but this totally goes along with that. But like others have said I don't really have anything else to add.
ReplyDeletethere is very little to say to repond to this blog. One thing there is to say is to keep good placement with your classifiers and everything else...
ReplyDeletegoodnight to all
Haha, thanks Jeff. :) I actually think that we, as a class, need to work on using more mouth morphemes. I know that I feel really stupid when I try to...so I usually don't. But if everybody is doing it..! Haha. I also really like the idea of Flubber. I LOVE that movie!! Maybe we should watch it in class... ;)
ReplyDelete