Martin Luther King Jr 'I Have A Dream' Background/ Information

I looked into the background of the 'I have a dream' speech and gathered information in order to help me think of interesting ideas ad concepts i could then include into my production. Here are a couple of examples of sites on the web i found interesting and useful information about this historic event.

Take from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream
"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination. The speech, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over 200,000 civil rights supporters,[1] the speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.[2] According to U.S. RepresentativeJohn Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability, and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."[3]

In my own words...
This information outlined what actually happened in terms of how much it impacted the public and why it made it such a historic event for not only the people in america but the entire world. Since then it seems rights have improved dramatically. Heres some more information from that site...

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Because King's speech was broadcast to a large radio and television audience, there was controversy about the copyright status of the speech. If the performance of the speech constituted "general publication", it would have entered the public domain due to King's failure to register the speech with the Registrar of Copyrights. If the performance only constituted "limited publication", however, King retained common law copyright. This led to a lawsuit, Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc., which established that the King estate does hold copyright over the speech and had standing to sue; the parties then settled. Unlicensed use of the speech or a part of it can still be lawful in some circumstances, especially in jurisdictions under doctrines such as fair use or fair dealing. Under the applicable copyright laws, the speech will remain under copyright in the United States until 70 years after King's death, thus until 2038.
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In my own words...
This interested me a lot due to the speeches copyright and it being broadcasted to such a large audience, maybe i could include some sort of footage about copyright, then again this may steer away from the actual theme of my production.

Here is a copy of the document signed by Martin Luther King Jr...

http://www.archives.gov/northeast/nyc/exhibits/images/mlk-depo.pdf

Breaking Down The Speech

I am now going to 'break down' the speech and analyse what some of the terms being said mean and how they help create the ideas, feelings and emotions you get when listening to the speech. I have listed the following words/ terms used with in the section of speech i have chosen and i will also define these terms.

- Freedom: Independence, Choice, Free-Will  
  Definition: The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

-Mountain: Highland, Peak, Mound
  Definition: A large natural elevation of the earths surface

- Georgia: Name, Place, America 
   Definition: A State/ place in America

- Tennessee: Name, State, America 
   Definition: A State/ place in America

- Molehill: Mound, Pile, Heap 

   Definition:A small mound of earth thrown up by a mole burrowing near the surface 

- Mississippi: River, Place, North America
   Definition: A large river in North America that rises in Minnesota

- Ring: Echo, Sound, Air
   Definition: A particular quality conveyed by something heard or expressed

- Hamlet: Village, Settlement, Homestead
   Definition: A small settlement, genrally smaller than a village

- State: National, Public, Government 
   Definition: The Civil government of a county

- City: Urban, Metropolitan, Town
   Definition: A large town

- Speed: Pace, Rate, Tempo
   Definition: Rapidity of movement or action

- Jews: Jewish, People, Religion 
   Definition: Slang name for jewish people

- Negro: African/ American 
   Definition: Sometimes offensive. A member of a dark-skinned group of people originally native to Africa, south of Sahara 


- Spiritual: Religious, Holy, Sacred 
   Definition: Of or relating to religiousness or religious beliefs

- Free: Free-will, Individual, Unbound 
   Definition: Not confined to imprisoned

- Almighty: Powerful, Strong, Supreme 
   Definition: Having complete power, omnipotent

- God: Holy Farther, Spirit, belief 
   Definition: Many view god as the greater of all life, maker of the world and universe.

My Chosen Section Of The Speech

"Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual.. Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty we are free at last."

I think part of the speech is very powerful and portrays a lot of feeling and emotion. It builds up through out the entire speech but more so in this part than any other. This will allow me to use shots exaggerating movement and/ or speed the shots up as it plays towards the end to reach some sort of climax.

I cut my speech down in Adobe Sound booth pro and uploaded it/ embedded the html to show you.

(Video may take a few seconds to stream)

Martin Luther King Jr - Wordle

I found this website called Wordle.

http://www.wordle.net/

Wordle is a 'cloud' text generating website that allows you to change the format in which a text is laid out, manipulating key visual aspects such as color, type face, randomization, size and overal shape layout. I copied the Martin Luther King Jr Speech into Wordle and changed some of the presets in order to get different visual view points and different imagery.

This was a simple black text on white background and a white text on black background. This shows a lot of contrast and Wordle helps to emphasise key terms, for example 'Freedom', 'Dream' and 'Justice'. I will explain these terms later giving definitions in order to expand on ideas.

I then selected a part of the speech i though i might want to use in my 1 minute video clip and put this into Wordle, again changing presets and visual layout components.

Instead of doing just black/white i changed the color presets to give it a bit more life and seem a bit more interesting. The colours definitely contrast which adds depth to each individual word.

From this i learnt that different words have different visual impacts on the person reading them and the way the reader perceives the text and how it makes them think/ feel. I hope to include text on this scale into my own production, however i do not want the video to be to text heavy, only to highlight key aspects of the speech itself.