Making A Plan For Our Film

I have been thinking about how we can engage the audience with our film through delivering a moving and emotive message, without it being overstated and "cliche". I think what would be most effective is if we include little or very minimalistic narration and let the footage speak for itself. I think what we should do is speak to homeless individuals, perhaps ones we have gotten to know before or strangers, and ask them about themselves. If our intentions are to tackle the dehumanisation and discrimination they suffer then we should give them the chance to speak about themselves, unfiltered with our voices - we do not know their struggle. I'm sure many if not all of you are familiar with "humans of New York" and I bring that up because they pose very simple open questions to the subject such as "tell us something interesting about yourself", and these questions often lead to these beautiful and surprising tales that captivate anyone reading them. Immediately, through a picture and some text, you feel a connection and a familiarity to the person sharing their story, though you may share nothing in common with them. If we take a similar approach with our film, considering it will be 3-4 mins long, inviting these individuals to share a piece of themselves with us could be a really effective way to hopefully evoke that same sense of familiarity which will then help break down the walls we build between ourselves and homeless people.

Hanin