Question :

MOvie : The Pursuit Of Happyness - Ending scene

Link Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8-7mHT9edg

Step 1) Select a movie (fiction or documentary) from the past 20 years that provides either a documentary or fictionalized account of real business situations.

Some used previously include "The Wolf of Wall Street," "Office Space," "Jerry McGuire," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" and "The Devil Wears Prada."

While you watch: take notes; rewatch key scenes; and include specific references in step 2. Some of these may be available through the UTD Library to stream.

Step 2)Using the chart below, draft a minimum of a post in which you use the Stand Up, Speak Out textbook content in chapters 6-12 to analyze either how the characters spoke (documentary) or how the characters were depicted to have spoken (fictional film). You don't have to apply all chapters to the movie. You may use quotation marks: This will eventually be submitted to , so put the characters' words in quotation marks and quote any external sources. Use our communication vocabulary as you discuss what the characters are saying and how they say it. For example,

How Do the Concepts in the Chapter Apply to the Movie? Use and apply vocabulary to the film as you discuss what the characters are saying and how they say it.

Chapter*

6- Finding a Purpose and Selecting a Topic

8- Supporting Ideas and Building Arguments

Example:

The Founder

The Founder /Real Estate Business Scene

Link to video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sf0J_N9iBE

This biographical drama film is about the story of how one of the biggest fast-food franchises in the US-McDonald Corp.-became what it is today. In the movie, Ray Kroc, who later became one of the founders, was originally a milkshake machine salesman. One time, there was an unusually large order volume of milkshake machines that made him curious about the customer's business situation. He drove to California to figure out that it was McDonald's, a popular walk-in restaurant with fast services and professional employees, founded by the "Mac" and "Donald" brothers. He suggested the owners turn the place into a franchise one and let him take responsibility for the process under their strict surveillance. After a few early successes, Ray realized that his shares of the business were strictly limited by the brothers. He then met Harry Sonneborn, a financial consultant, who inspired him to break out of his contract with the McDonald brothers and founded his own McDonald's Corporation. The brothers eventually gave up and agreed to sell the brand to him for $2.8 million at the time (equivalent to $26 million now). He was determined to keep the name because he believed in its attributes of Americana.

This Real Estate Business Scene is the crucial point of the whole story since it brought inspiration to the birth of the known McDonald's Empire nowadays. In this scene, Ray Kroc met Harry Sonneborn and was persuaded to let him audit his financial records. Harry realized that the majority of revenue generated by the McDonald's Franchise was not from the sales of the hamburgers, their main product, but was mostly from the real estate they assigned to the franchisees. Harry explained to Ray how to take advantage of the franchise system they were having to generate more revenue by adding a condition to the contract that whoever wanted to become a franchisee of McDonald's must lease the store on the land owned by McDonald's only. He further convinced Ray that this new condition would bring in more capital for the acquisition and expansion. Also, he could have control over the service quality of franchisees since he had the right to cancel the lease of whoever did not uphold their work ethics.

6. What was the speaker (Harry)'s purpose in the conversation with Ray from the video?

In this scene, Harry was the one that did most of the talking part. After looking at Ray's financial reports, he spotted things that could have been hard to be recognized by Ray because Harry is a professional financial consultant. Thus, Harry's first of all-purpose was to inform Ray about the real nature of his business. It's not fast-food but a real-estates one. He shared his knowledge when he went into smaller details and explained to Ray why it was real-estate as the majority of revenue came from leases of franchisees. Finally, he persuaded Ray that he should consider focusing on that aspect of the business from now on by providing him strategies, as well as pointing out the advantages of having control over the use of leases. Specifically, it was a pure persuasion which is defined as "occurs when a speaker urges listeners to engage in a specific behavior or change a point of view because the speaker truly believes that the change is in the best interest of the audience members" (Chap.6, Stand Up, Speak Out). In this case, Harry sincerely wanted Ray to change his perspective on the business as purely a fast-food chain to consider it as a real-estates one for future expansion.

8. How did Harry build and support his arguments?

To begin with, Ray had already known that Harry was a professional financial consultant. Moreover, the argument Harry made about how Ray should focus more on the real estate aspect of the chain than selling the cheap burger, based on the information from the financial reports. He looked into it, recognized the pattern, and make a conclusion based on those numbers. Besides, he asked questions and obtained answers from Ray's himself. His conclusion was based on both the financial reports and what Ray personally told him. These were current, accurate facts and statistics with no bias that helped to build credibility for Harry's argument.

Furthermore, Harry used "Figurative analogies" when he "compared two ideas or objects from two different classes" (chap.8, Stand Up, Speak Out). Specifically, he pointed out the difference in the earning of selling hamburgers to ger "4% cut of a 15 cent hamburger" (The Founder) from "owning the land the burger is cooked, then turn around and lease it to franchisees" (The Founder). The difference was so big and real that it attracted Ray's attention that led to his later serious consideration of the idea.

Overall, Harry successfully persuaded Ray to turn his original ideas into a real business that he even accepted to pay $2.8 million to buy the brand name. It was thanks to Harry's smooth and persuasive argument based on accurate information with strong supports. This one scene played such an important role. The movie is about the story of how McDonald's became an empire like it is nowadays, and this one 5-minute scene was the main event.

B.J.Novak, who played Harry in the show, did such a good job that I, as an audience, sticks my eyes to the screen throughout the whole video. I felt enlightened while he was explaining how this could be a larger business and how to make that happen. It was so smooth, smart, analytical, and informative that it is incredibly trustworthy to me, and Ray Kroc as well.

References:

1. Wrench, J. S., Goding, A., Johnson, D. I., & Attias, B. (2016). Finding a Purpose and Selecting a Topic. Stand up, speak out: The practice and ethics of public speaking. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing.

2. Wrench, J. S., Goding, A., Johnson, D. I., & Attias, B. (2016). Supporting Ideas and Building Arguments. Stand up, speak out: The practice and ethics of public speaking. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing.

3. The Founder. (2020, August 30). Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder

4. Hancock, J. L. (Director). (2016). The Founder [Motion picture]. The United States