Homelessness

            On the first day of the project, we all assigned ourselves specific components of our project. The component I was responsible for was making a video, which would be the main element of the campaign. I'm pretty knowledgeable when it comes to iMovie, so I figured it would be the best thing for me to do. The first thing I did was let Siani and Loren finish finding statistics and putting together a brochure, which we planned to give out to people. The other component I helped with was the name of the campaign, which was "Homeless Faces of Philadelphia". Both Sammy and I tried to combine our ideas and keep in contact with the rest of the group, and update them on new ideas. My group and I got along pretty nicely, so there really were no disagreements or complications.

            My original idea for the video was to take my own photographs of the homeless in Philadelphia. I came to school equipped and ready with my camera to photograph throughout the city, I even came with a bag of change as a small token for the people who let me take a photograph of them. But as I set off on my journey, camera in hand, money in pocket, I was overwhelmed by the sadness of their desperation and felt that photographing them for my agenda felt inappropriate. Also, that my small token of a couple of dollars for this project was meaningless, so instead I chose to use available images to tell a story. But the deep impression that was made on that day will stay with me for a long time. 

Since I was not able to go through with my original plan, I decided to compile as many pictures as I could from the Internet, all of which were taken in Philadelphia (so it wasn’t completely random). When I got to around twenty-five, I thought it was best to make the campaign video around fifty seconds long, so it wouldn't be too overwhelming for people, since homelessness is a very serious subject to begin with. After that, I tried to find music that would be appropriate for the assignment. The first thought that came to mind, was The Pursuit of Happiness, which I think depicts the subject really well. The song that I found was actually called "Homeless" which was when Will Smith's character found out that he has not where to go with him and his son and it really renders the feeling of desperation. Once I had the pictures and music, I needed quotes or lines that could help me get our message across. Sammy and I worked together to put a few lines together, which I think represented our message very well.

Overall, the project went smoothly. My group collaborated pretty well, each of us knew what we had to do and we accomplished our goals, even if some of us didn't do what we were originally going to do. I believe our final project turned out to be really meaningful and effective (I know this because it made my Mom cry).