Start of Planning

Putting the Car in First Gear

This week marked a big step forward in this project for my teammate and I. While I was driving, I got an idea for our drama film. I had remembered my dad once telling me a story about his friend who was homeless for a couple of months and had lived in his car. This man had extremely saddening yet triumphant story. Then I thought I haven't seen many movies on the struggles of homelessness (possibly due to society's negative assumptions of the homeless). However, it seems like something that would be a dramatic and telling story.

My teammate and I liked the idea, however, we needed more background information to be sold (plus make sure it wasn't cheesy). We were mainly looking for a touching back story about how this person became homeless. So we began to research homelessness. We found that bigger cities like New York and LA have issues with expensive housing and low-income people. We also found that many people become homeless due to losing their jobs. This idea of losing a job stood out to us more so we went done that road.

We like the idea of person who became homeless due to losing their job, however, we were still missing the wow factor. This is when my partner had come up with the idea of someone losing their job to a robot. This idea felt so right for us. It is something that society may begin to encounter more frequently in the future. We believe this will add the drama we were missing.

Not only will we get to show a new light on the homeless, but we will be able to show a future problem that may arise with technology growth.

Picture found at IMG_8603.jpg

Now how are we going to get robots in the film opening?

We flat out have zero budget. However.... we realized robots/ machines are all around us. We are planning to show someone getting fired from a Walmart/Target due to the lack of  workers needed. These stores have recently been incorporating self-checkouts which call for less help from workers. Changes in businesses may become more technology-driven in the future and we want to capture the dangers of that in our film.

TBA

We are still unsure if we want to make the film take place in the future but we are leaning towards having it take place in the present.

Our Inspirations:

Unbelievable (2019)
This show is not at all about homelessness but it evokes a dull and sad
 tone by its use duller colors/ filters. We want our opener to look similar.

Joker (2019)

We were inspired by the focus pull from the Joker to his

 mirrored self used in the opening. We plan on making

a similar shot with the fired worker to the self checking machine.

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

This movie represents the homeless in a

 positive light (although it is so sad)