FIRST PAPER ASSIGNMENT RASHOMON NAME April 7, 2021 PART 1 The feature film Rashomon of 1950 was viewed. The film was directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was a very good film because of the cinematic artwork that was included. Montage was efficiently used in the film. Short shots were used well to tell the whole story. One could easily understand the story due to the short shots. The film explained why the Samurai was skilled and who killed him. Many questions were answered in the film due to the effective use of montage. One of the things I liked about the film was its music. The music was put up very well in the film. It shifted to a suspenseful tone whenever suspense was added to the film. The audience could easily notice the change of events or scenes in the film through the way music was played in the film. There was a great use of sound in the film. The sound in various scenes matched well with what was happening in each scene. Another thing I liked about the film was the way camerawork was done. The camerawork was done in a way that the audience could see the characters' faces. The atypical close planning was used. The audience could see the faces of the characters and identify their emotions and feelings. The camerawork in the film was done very well. I liked the natural environment in which the film was shot. The film felt real because one could see things that exist in the natural environment such as the rain, natural light, and the trees. Sunlight was filmed very well. The light was focused in the physical locations where various scenes were conducted. The woods and the forests made the story sound real. One could feel the emotions of the characters. For example, the sorrowful emotions by the woman could be felt and her anger. I disliked the fact that the film was black and white. Even though it was easy to identify the scenes and characters, it was not easy to determine various colors in the film. One could not see the color of blood when the Samurai was killed. One could not determine the time of the day in which various events happened. However, the movie was still great because the black and white colors did not have a significant impact on quality. I also disliked the low quality of the video. There were low megapixels possibly because the technology was not advanced. One could only see the faces of the characters and their bodies. However, it was hard to see various details in the background. The good thing about the film was that it was shot in a natural environment and one would easily see that other details in the film were trees in the forests and the wood. The film was generally fantastic because of its events and the use of suspense. The color was just a personal preference, and the film would be enjoyed with the use of color. The way the woman fought with Tajo Maru looked very real. The film was a very good watch despite Tajo Maru's creepiness. PART 2: I liked Akira Kurosawa as a film director because he seemed ...

1. FIRST PAPER ASSIGNMENT
RASHOMON
NAME
April 7, 2021
PART 1
The feature film Rashomon of 1950 was viewed. The film was
directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was a very good film because of
the cinematic artwork that was included. Montage was
efficiently used in the film. Short shots were used well to tell
the whole story. One could easily understand the story due to
the short shots. The film explained why the Samurai was skilled
and who killed him. Many questions were answered in the film
due to the effective use of montage.
One of the things I liked about the film was its music. The
music was put up very well in the film. It shifted to a
suspenseful tone whenever suspense was added to the film. The
audience could easily notice the change of events or scenes in
the film through the way music was played in the film. There
was a great use of sound in the film. The sound in various

2. scenes matched well with what was happening in each scene.
Another thing I liked about the film was the way camerawork
was done. The camerawork was done in a way that the audience
could see the characters' faces. The atypical close planning was
used. The audience could see the faces of the characters and
identify their emotions and feelings. The camerawork in the
film was done very well.
I liked the natural environment in which the film was shot. The
film felt real because one could see things that exist in the
natural environment such as the rain, natural light, and the
trees. Sunlight was filmed very well. The light was focused in
the physical locations where various scenes were conducted.
The woods and the forests made the story sound real. One could
feel the emotions of the characters. For example, the sorrowful
emotions by the woman could be felt and her anger.
I disliked the fact that the film was black and white. Even
though it was easy to identify the scenes and characters, it was
not easy to determine various colors in the film. One could not
see the color of blood when the Samurai was killed. One could
not determine the time of the day in which various events
happened. However, the movie was still great because the black
and white colors did not have a significant impact on quality.
I also disliked the low quality of the video. There were low
megapixels possibly because the technology was not advanced.
One could only see the faces of the characters and their bodies.
However, it was hard to see various details in the background.
The good thing about the film was that it was shot in a natural
environment and one would easily see that other details in the
film were trees in the forests and the wood.
The film was generally fantastic because of its events and the
use of suspense. The color was just a personal preference, and
the film would be enjoyed with the use of color. The way the
woman fought with Tajo Maru looked very real. The film was a
very good watch despite Tajo Maru's creepiness.
PART 2:

3. I liked Akira Kurosawa as a film director because he seemed to
have mastered how to show various human emotions by
focusing the camera on actors’ faces. The director’s use of
shadow cast to show a scene or event’s intensity was
interesting. Some events; however, felt elongated musically.
Everything else seemed to be perfect.
I also liked Kurosawa because of his use of sound cinema in the
films. There was use of real sound in the film to multiply
images. I also Kurosawa’s simplicity. One would easily identify
the scenes in the film he made. Few settings were included in
the film. In the Rashomon film, Kurosawa only included the
courtyard, the woods and the Rashomon gate as the only
settings. The courtyard and the gate have been constructed very
simply. The woodland in the film was also real. Viewers would
find it easier to understand the message of the films because of
Kurosawa’s simplicity.
The woman acted her role very well in the film. She was able to
display the right emotions depending on the occasion. For
example, she displayed emotions of anger well when Tajo maru
wanted to forcefully marry her. She was also very disappointed
when her husband was killed by Tajo Maru. The woman clearly
showed that she felt a lot of pain as her husband was killed.
The quality of the film was high. Its cinematography was
following the movies produced during that time. The scenes
were arranged well. The film would have been the best if it
were not for the low megapixels and use of black and white
colors. Considering the period in which the movie was
produced, it was one of the best because technology had not
advanced enough for various colors to be used in the movies.
You are all Equity Researchers for a financial services company
in which I am a Portfolio Manager. Our firm is currently

4. evaluating possible equity investments in a selected number of
industries and I have organized you into teams to evaluate firms
in each of these industries.
Group 1: Beverage Group 6: Beverage Group 11:
Apparel
Group 2: Apparel Group 7: Apparel Group
12: Restaurant
Group 3: Restaurant Group 8: Restaurant
Group 13: Technology
Group 4: Technology Group 9: Technology
Group 14: Apparel
Group 5: Beverage Group 10: Beverage
For the industry your team is assigned, select both a base
company and one similarly-sized competitor (peer). You must
send both the name and the ticker symbol for both companies to
me for my approval.[footnoteRef:1] Once approved, you must
obtain the three most recent annual reports (Form 10-K) for
both companies. [1: While I must approve all company
selections, I will generally provide broad latitude with them so
long as financial statements for the companies are publicly
available and no two Groups have selected the same base
company.]
Each team is required to perform analysis and provide a
recommendation to me. You must make one of five
recommendations: a strong buy for your base firm, a weak buy
for your base firm, a strong buy for your peer firm, a weak buy
for your peer form, or no buy (i.e., we should not invest in
either firm). The analysis and recommendation must be written
in the form of a business memorandum from the Equity
Research team (you) to the Portfolio Manager (me) and must
include each of the following components. In writing the
memo, use section headers to clearly delineate each of the

5. following five sections.
1. Analyze three items on the income statement (or income
statement-based financial ratios; see the list on p. 3) for your
base company for the last three years and discuss whether the
company’s performance related to these items appear to be
improving, deteriorating, or remaining stable. Justify your
answer.
2. Analyze three items on the balance sheet (or balance sheet-
based financial ratios; see the list on p. 3) for your base
company for the last three years and discuss whether the
company’s performance related to these items appear to be
improving, deteriorating, or remaining stable. Justify your
answer.
3. Identify the single largest adjustment (in absolute value) to
reconcile net income to operating cash flow in the most recent
year of your base company’s statement of cash flows (contact
me if they did not use the indirect method; also contact me if
the identified item reflects something we haven’t discussed in
class before). Describe how and why the item arises – that is,
broadly describe how it creates a disconnect between income
and cash flows for your company. Then, assess the risk
(low/medium/high) that this item adversely affects your base
company’s earnings quality in the most recent year. Justify
your answer.
4. Identify two items not included in (or derived from) the
financial statements that you think would be important to
someone considering whether to invest in your base company.
Discuss your reasons for believing that these items would be
important in making an investment decision. (Note: you will
need to do some investigation to find these items for your
company, and you will need to incorporate knowledge gained
from other business classes.)

6. 5. Compare your base company’s financial statements with
those of its competitor and provide an official recommendation.
Justify and provide support for your recommendation. (Note:
your answer in this section must include some financial issues,
but your answer need not be limited to a discussion of financial
issues.)
Additional Instructions:
1. Your memorandum can have no more than sixpages of text
and must be formatted as follows: double-spaced with one-inch
margins (top/bottom/left/right), using Times New Roman 12-
point font. The text of your memo should comprise the first six
pages of your document (i.e., do not include a cover page).
2. All data used in the income statement, balance sheet, and
cash flow analysis MUST be taken directly from the financial
statements. That is, for these sections you may not use data
obtained from external (e.g. internet) sources – the data must be
sourced directly from the company’s annual financial
statements.
3. Immediately after the six pages of text – on the 7th page of
your document – you must include a worksheet in which you
provide detail supporting all ratio calculations referenced in the
text. Every financial value used must include a reference to the
page of the annual report from which the number was extracted,
and the relevant portions of the annual reports must be
highlighted (see item 4 below).
4. Any referenced pages of the annual report (for both
companies) must be appended at the end of the document
(starting on page 8). Do not attach the entire annual reports –
only the referenced pages. (Adobe Acrobat has a tool which can
extract pages from one PDF and insert them into another PDF
file.)

7. 5. Your memorandum must also contain appropriate quotation
marks for quoted material and appropriate citations for material
taken from sources outside the financial statements. Financial
or other values used in the Other items and Investment decision
sections that are not sourced from the financial statements must
include appropriate citations.
6. Each group must upload their memorandum to Canvas in PDF
form by 11:59 PM on April 19th, 2021.
GRADING RUBRIC
The written project will be graded on a 100-point scale, in two
phases. First, my GTA will review the projects for compliance
with the basic requirements (15 points). Second, I will review
the projects for content and for composition (85 points). They
will be graded as follows:
Component
Points
Income Statement Items: Choices
8
Income Statement Items: Analysis
8
Balance Sheet Items: Choices
8
Balance Sheet Items: Analysis
8
Cash Flow Item: Analysis
8
Other Items: Choices and Analysis
10
Investment Decision: Analysis
20
Writing/Grammar/Organization
15

8. Compliance with Instructions
15
TOTAL
100
The ideal memorandum is well written, free of grammatical and
other writing errors, and well organized. The memo addresses
each of the issues specified in the requirements, uses
appropriate examples to illustrate concepts discussed, and
integrates the annual report data with the text. The
memorandum focuses on important items, demonstrates a
thorough understanding of the relationships among financial
statement data, and is cohesive.
EVALUATION FORM
Additionally, each individual must submit an evaluation form in
which you evaluate each member of your team,
excludingyourself, using the following scale:
5: The teammate did much more than their share
4: The teammate did somewhat more than their share
3: The teammate did approximately their share
2: The teammate did somewhat less than their share
1: The teammate did much less than their share
The default rating should be a “3.” Giving every member of the
team a “5” will be functionally equivalent to giving every
member a “3” – and will make me do extra work to adjust the
figures. For every group member who either rates themselves
or assigns an average rating of 4 or above, I will reduce the
group’s “Compliance with Instructions” grade component by
one point.
Teammates whose ratings average 1 point above that of the team
will have their scores raised by 5%. Teammates whose ratings

9. are less than 1 point above the team average and at least 2.41
will receive the grade on the paper that is determined by the
grading rubric. Teammates whose scores average between 1.5
and 2.4 will have their project grade lowered by 10%.
Teammates whose scores average between 0.5 and 1.49 will
have their project grade lowered by 20%. Please note that I
have utilized this evaluation process in the past, and on average
approximately 90% of students’ grades do not change.
You will submit the evaluation form via a link made available
on our Canvas page; the form is available at that link.
ALTERNATE INDIVIDUAL PROJECT (if necessary)
I want to ensure that by the time each project is submitted, there
are no students who did not contribute at all to their team’s
project. In the event you have a teammate that is not
contributing at all to the project, please communicate this to me
as soon as possible. I will deal with the student directly and,
depending on the circumstances, I may remove them from your
group.
In order to allow each group enough time to finish the project, I
will make the decision to remove a student from their group at
least three days before the due date of the project. At that time,
the removed student will receive instructions to complete an
alternate individual project. The alternate individual project
will be due on 4/26/2021.
INCOME STATEMENT AND BALANCE SHEET RATIOS
While you are not limited to the financial statement ratios we
covered in class for your I/S and B/S analysis, if you choose to
use them, please use the following classifications.
ACCT 3309

10. With Terra McGhee
Group Project – Instructions
Spring 2021 | Page 3
Income Statement-based ratios:
· ROE
· ROA
· PM, GPM
· Interest coverage
· Change in revenue
Balance Sheet-based ratios:
· Asset turnover
· ART, INVT, PPET
· D/E ratio, Net working
capital, Current ratio,
Quick ratio