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Michael Duquesnel Formatted: Line spacing: single

Professor Lindsey
College Writing
19 September 2019
Rhetorical Analysis

A rhetorical situation is an event of communication between two separate parties. The Commented [LG1]: Is it always between two separate
parties? It certainly can be! But can it be between more
or less?
different parts of a rhetorical situation include the rhetor or author, the audience, the constraints

on the communications, and the exigence or reason for which the communication is happening.

Rhetorical situations occur in any piece of communication whether we are aware of it our not.

For this rhetorical analysis, I will be analyzing a script that I wrote for a film project for

my Modern Thought and Literature class back in the Spring of 2018. The script was titled “Can

You Survive a Horror Movie?” and was a horror-comedy about a group of friends who love to

watch horror movies. One of the guys claims that surviving a horror movie would be pretty

simple, so the rest of the group puts him to the test to see if surviving a horror movie is really as

easy as it sounds. The script was around fifteen pages long and was written in a script format,

similar to what they use in Hollywood. Commented [LG2]: Nice, strong, and brief intro and
summary of the writing experience!
Rhetor Formatted: Left

The rhetor for this situation is me. I was tasked with creating a movie for our final

project. This project would represent what I had learned in the class and my ability to put that

into practice. When creating the script for this movie, I pulled on the knowledge of the horror-

comedy genre and took some inspiration from some of my favorites. Movies like Edgar Wright’s

Shaun of the Dead and Wes Craven’s Scream served as some great examples of how to make an

effective horror-comedy. With a few watches of these films, I picked up on enough tropes to

skillfully apply them to my own writing style. Commented [LG3]: Another strong paragraph that
gives enough detail to progress your analysis and keep
the essay focused on the overall rhetorical situation.
Audience
Formatted: Left
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The audience for this project was just the cast and crew who helped in making this script
become reality. The goal of writing this script was to communicate clearly to the actors on how
their characters should be acting and how the scenes should flow. Without any descriptions and
Commented [LG4]: Might you discuss your primary and
secondary audience? While the actors and crew were
the only ones to read the script as you wrote it, you
might mention that you wrote the script for the cast and
crew to interpret but also for the viewers or evaluators
of your movie.

** Now I see you did do that below! I might just adjust

details, the finished film would have turned out clunky and fallen flat as the actors would not the first sentence here to not limit the audience to “just
the cast and crew,” and begin to outline that you had
two audiences.
have known what to do. There were also notes about camera angles and shots for the cameraman

so they would understand what the vision of the film looked like.

The main person in which this project was written for was my teacher, Mr. Bowen, who

would be grading the finished movie. Mr. Bowen was an opinionated man who loved making his

voice and perspective known, and usually, that opinion was incredibly negative. He loved to tell

students that their projects were not up to par, which added some sort of narcissistic enjoyment

to grading projects. This would prove to be a daunting task for me, but I would try to meet his

high expectations in order to please him. Commented [LG5]: Can you give any specific things or
actions you took to try to meet his expectations? What
impact did his role as the audience have over your
Constraints writing choices?

Like all school projects, this one had a specific due date. With that deadline in mind, the

script had to be written quickly, as we could not start filming until the script was written in full.

This led to me as the rhetor to not have enough time to fully flesh out all aspects of the story that

I wished to. Revisions to the script were to be kept to a minimum as there was not an ample

amount of time for them. This would, in the end, have a lasting impact on how the quality of the

finished movie project would turn out. Commented [LG6]: Will you share that impact here or
later in the essay?
The overall guidelines for what the finished product should look like was also a

constraint on this project. The video would have to total at least ten minutes in length. This

meant that the script itself had to reach a certain length so that the film would be long enough.
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The film would also have to incorporate aspects of other films from the genre, to show that I, the

rhetor, had a firm understanding of that particular genre. Commented [LG7]: Can you analyze this connection a
bit more (author and constraints)? You gave a little
background information on how you watched movies to
Exigence understand the genre better, what else can you discuss
to connect these two elements and demonstrate that?
The reasons for communication between myself and the cast and crew for the project Commented [LG8]: Is this why you wrote the script
though? The exigence should be your exigence on the
writing as a whole so your purpose and motivations in
were to effectively communicate the vision I had for this film. Without this communication, the creating the script which was a school project. While
you needed to communicate with the cast and crew to
entire project would have seemed scatterbrained, and in the end, would take a longer amount of be successful, was that your exigence for writing?

time to finish the film. I wished to give the cast better ideas for their characters by explaining

each of their personalities on paper so they could have something to refer to during the filming

process. Also, with the camera angles and stage directions already written in the script, it would

lead to a better understanding for the crew and would help to streamline the process.

Final Thoughts

This writing experience overall was one of the more fun and creative experiences that I

have done. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every constraint put on me with the specific guidelines

for the project and also trying to impress my audience. As the rhetor, this allowed me to push

myself into becoming a better writer and work on my communication skills through this

rhetorical situation.

For your next draft, continue to deepen your analysis elements and build on the connections

between the components of the rhetorical situation.