Icarus Documentary Rough Draft

       

                                       

    I watched the documentary Icarus, a film that came out on January 20th, 2017 and was directed by

Bryan Fogel.  The film Icarus is about doping scandals in sports, specifically the Russians and their

doping in the Olympics, and how the scandal was exposed.  There are multiple characters who put their

input about the doping scandal through short interviews, but there are two central characters that the

film centers around.  Bryan Fogel, a cyclist who competed against Lance Armstrong, and Grigory

Rodchenkov, who was the head of the Russian doping program that allowed the Russians to get away

with cheating in the Olympics for so long.  The film starts with Bryan and his cycling career, and how

he idolizes Lance Armstrong, who at the time was considered one of the best cyclists in the world. 

However, when Bryan sees the news that Lance was doping, it not only changes his perception of him,

but it also motivates him to start doping in order to explore and answer the question, how were the

athletes who were doping getting away with it?

However, in order to start this process, Bryan needed to connect with someone who was/had been experienced in helping athletes dope before.  This is what led him to connect with Grigory Rodchenkov, who checked this box.  Bryan set up a video call with Grigory to get the load down about how this would go.  Grigory explained to Bryan that he would start off by being assigned dosages by Grigory and begin the doping cycle.  Then when he would start competing, he would take his pee samples and freeze them so that the pee samples were clean rather than dirty.  In a scene where Bryan was taking the samples, they gave his legs some bruising after being inserted, exploring possible negative side effects of doping.

Bryan starts testing out doping by just doing normal rides without competing to see the effects of the doping, specifically how much it improved his performance.  He observes that his performance is much improved, as his times on his rides were dropping.  After that, Bryan begins competing while doping and sees how much of an advantage he has on the field.  He starts off very well, but a problem with the spokes in his bike occurs, effectively taking him out of the race.  Though he did not finish the race well, he achieved his goal of seeing how much of an advantage he had while doping, which he realized was very large.

Shortly after Bryan’s competition, the Russians are in the news for having their Track and Field athletes doping.  During all of this, Grigory discovers that one of his close friends, who worked in the anti-doping industry in Russia, mysteriously died one night.  This indicates to him that his life is in danger as well.  Shortly after, Bryan and Grigory get on a video call and Grigory tells Bryan that his life is in danger.  Byran and Grigory then formulate a plan to get more news out about the Russian program.  They conclude the meeting by deciding that Grigory should flee Russia and go to L.A. where Bryan is living.  Grigory leaves without his wife, kid, or most of his personal belongings.  

Grigory arrives in L.A. from his flight safely and meets Bryan at the airport.  Shortly after his arrival, Grigory is interviewed by Bryan about the Russian doping program. Grigory then reveals how he headed the Russian doping program at one time, and states how they had been doing it since the 60s, and perhaps longer.  He details exactly how they did it, how long they had been doing it, and the system they used to make their athletes seem clean.  He also states that Vladmir Putin, the president of Russia, knew about the program, which explains why Grigory’s life was in danger since Putin knew about Grigory’s history with the program.  

After the information about the Russians was exposed, the Russians were temporarily banned from publicly competing in athletics, which included the Rio 2016 Olympics.  Although the Russians had been exposed, Grigory couldn’t go back to Russia due to the threat this would have on his life.  So, he came to an agreement with the U.S. Government to live in an isolated location in the U.S. that the Russians, and most other people, wouldn’t know about.  Today, Grigory is still living in hiding while Bryan Fogel is still competing in cycling while also directing and producing other documentaries, like The Dissident (Icarus).

Icarus Documentary Reflection

     This post will be centered around the documentary I will be using for my documentary project.  

One scene in the film Icarus that “got to me” was the scene after the Russians were found out for sports

doping.  Bryan Fogel and Grigory Rodchenkov were on an online call, and Grigory expressed a lot of

concern about his life and how it was in jeopardy because he was the mastermind behind the doping

scheme in Russia.  This made me feel a lot of concern for Grigory, as well as made me more intrigued

in the film.  I was very concerned because I didn’t know how Grigory was going to get out of the

situation he was in, as well as the fact that Bryan’s life might be in danger as well since he was working

with Grigory to expose Russian doping.  However, this also intrigued me because it made me ask a lot

of questions, like will Grigory survive, and how long had the doping in Russia been going on for?

One thing that surprised me in Icarus was Bryan’s decision to start doping.  When Bryan found out that Lance Armstrong, an athlete who he idolized, did sports doping, I thought that he would’ve hated him and that he would’ve had a much different opinion about him.  While he did have a slightly different opinion about Lance, this also drove him to start doping for himself.  Bryan did this so that he could see how much doping enhanced his performance, as well as compare how he performed while doping vs. without doping.  This caught me off guard because his reaction to the news of Lance doping wasn’t how I thought he would react at all, but it did make the film more interesting and engaging.

One question that still remained with me after watching Icarus was how long were the Russians doing sports doping?  When the news came out about them doping, it was stated that they were doing it for a while, but another statement after that said that it was unknown about how long the Russians had been doing this.  Going into the film, I was against sports doping because it gave the athletes doing it a huge advantage, and after watching the film I still feel the same.  This feeling popped up throughout the film, but mainly when Bryan was testing out doping, as it proved my feeling about sports doping and made me lean towards that feeling even more so than before I watched Icarus.  It felt good, however, since there was proof in this film that my feeling seemed to be correct, and that I could be more comfortable with it.

There are multiple reasons why we might avoid putting research in our summaries.  For one, it could steer away from the documentary itself.  We could be too focused on the numbers and statistics from the documentary, or the topic it was trying to cover, over being focused on the documentary itself, and what it was all about.  Another reason why we may not want to put research in our summaries is that it could turn the summary into an essay paper rather than a film summary.  Inserting research could make the summary become a formulaic essay paper, with claims and evidence backing up the claims, with the evidence being the research.  

Paying for Homework: A Rant

   The blog post this week will be a rant post.  I'm sure most people have had to pay for college schoolbooks before the semester.  That is fine, but recently I've had a situation with one of my classes this semester that I haven't encountered before, and I most certainly wasn't a fan of.  It was paying for homework.  And it wasn't paying for a textbook, no.  It was paying for an actual online service so I could even access the homework.

    Paying for access to homework for a class is ridiculous in itself.  On top of that, the service itself isn't even that good.  Sure I'm able to do the homework, which is what it's function is supposed to be.  However, it doesn't do a very good job of being a quality service.  For one, on every homework problem, the text that describes the problem is always very small and hard to read.  Some problems also have hints in case you are struggling with a problem, but most of the time the hints aren't very helpful at all. 

Along with paying to access a homework service just so I don't fail the class, the service itself doesn't have high quality, a bad combo.  If we could think about putting work into making a quality service for homework rather than making it for a cash grab, we could possibly learn more about the subject, and have less struggle learning and be more efficient.

Microtheme: The Differences between College and High School Writing

     This post will be revolved around the Microtheme and how it shows differences between high school and college writing.  Going into it, I thought that I would be writing how I usually would for any essay/writing assignment I had done in the past.  However, after observing how to write a proper Microtheme, this is not the case.  For one, I had to adapt a different writing style while making it.  This, however, gave me more freedom in being able to write what I wanted to, and inserting some opinion into the writing.

    This leads to another thing I learned from the Microtheme: college writing is much different than high school writing.  In high school there was a certain format we always had to follow for each essay we had, 5-6 paragraphs, MLA format, with an intro and conclusion paragraph, and 3-4 body paragraphs supporting your claim in the essay.  We were also encouraged to not be opinionated/unbiased in our essays unless it was specified.  In college, however, there is more flexibility when it comes to our writing.  For one, like stated previously, I am able to sprinkle in a little bit of my own opinion on the subject, as well as my personal experiences with the topic.  I'm also not locked into a certain format, as long as I don't go over a certain page count, I can write the Microtheme with more freedom within that space.  This intrigues me for future writings in class as I'll be expecting to learn a new way to write for each big project that we have.

The Stresses of Homework

     I'm sure most of you have had the dreadful feeling of having to do schoolwork.  Some people tend to be able to get it done as soon as they can without distractions, while others find ways to procrastinate and eventually do it at the very last moment.  I find myself in the middle of this group, I don't try to put it off for too long, but I still have a hard time getting to grinding out homework or studying for a period of time at times.  An example of this, ironically, is writing this blog post.  I haven't put it off until the absolute latest time I could do it, but I didn't think about getting it done right away.  However, I have a few strategies for playing around procrastination and efficient studying.

    One of these strategies relates to a big part of our lives today, our phones.  The main way to keep from this distraction is to put my phone away, or on silent.  As temping as it is to look at any notifications or texts that you might receive, I've found my phone to be the biggest distraction when it comes to doing homework or studying, and that I'm much more efficient when I'm not thinking about it or looking at it.  I still struggle with this, but I've gotten a lot better at not looking at it.  Another strategy was my studying strategy I developed during last semester.  I would study for about 30 minutes, then take a small break, then study another 30 minutes, take a break, then repeat this process until I was done for the day.  This allowed me to not only feed less into distractions, but also allowed me to retain information better after studying, as well as keep me more engaged when studying.  These strategies helped me improve my grades and test performance, and I will continue to use these s
strategies in the future.