Group Members- Jordan, Denver, Montana, Cianna, and Stephanie
For project 3 we created a video for The Well. In this video, we display a variety of personalities and while we show the serious hardships they experience, we also made a point to showcase the fun and playful side of the people experiencing homelessness. Our group chose The Well because we were drawn to their purpose and environment. Walking into The Well for the first time you could just feel the family atmosphere there and that was something we wanted to show the viewers. Everyone we encountered both on and off recordings had nothing but good things to say about The Well and the other people that reside there.
We discovered there is a misinterpretation surrounding the term “homeless,” so we showed “people experiencing homelessness” in what we found to be their true light. The Well told us to use the term people experiencing homelessness because when we label someone ‘homeless’ that becomes their identity, but they are just people with personalities and interests that aren’t only defined by their current situation. To showcase this imbalance of perspective we start the video with a black and white filter, emotional music, and slower-paced footage. Then we have an audio clip that says “let's skip to the good part” and the entire video transforms from dreary and sad to fun and upbeat. We changed the entire energy of the video by adding a huge beat drop in the music to put the audience in a happier mood. We also took away the back and white filter and added faster-paced, happier videos to show that The Well’s environment is fun and bright. We start the video with this form of pathos to grab the viewer's attention, by starting it out as an emotionally sad video about homelessness and turning it into a colorful, happy video, we are showcasing the visual equivalent of “homeless people'' and “people experiencing homelessness.” We turn the story from depressing and making you pity their situations to just showing normal people going through a rough time.
Our purpose throughout this project was to show the audience not to pity these people but to see these people as part of our community. We want people to help them out of kindness and try to understand their stories. To convey this piece of logos we added audio recordings of the people that reside at The Well so the audience hears actual guests’ points of view. We matched the meaning of the audio with a visual representation that supports the statements. For example when John, a Veteran we interviewed, says “ Don't judge a book by its cover, the outside [might] look good but the inside ain’t worth two cents [and vice versa.] I'd like to change people's minds, to where we could all unite and understand one another,” we present the audience with footage of the outside area in the front and back of the building to parallel with the outward perceptions. There is also a shot of a window with cars passing to truly demonstrate people from the outside looking in and them often passing by with only judgment, not even thinking to stop and get to know the place or the people. We also display videos of the amenities The Well provides like cots, food, a place to eat, and even a bookshelf full of donated books while John is saying “All the people in general, they're all good people and they are doing everything under the sun to help everybody.” In the video, we pair these visuals and audio because John is talking about how much the staff at The Well does for the people that come in. It is a clear depiction of just a few of the small things that The Well provides for people experiencing homelessness.
Throughout our video we tried to showcase how visual rhetoric and society’s influence change people’s perceptions of the different members of our community. These misconceptions of humans cause us to miss out on opportunities to get to know the stories of other people just because they live differently than us.
Denver Anthony- Throughout this project, he has been trying his best to get his work schedule and our schedule to mix together. I believe that he succeeded in this difficult task, and he was very helpful throughout this entire Project 3. He was kind, had great communication, and tried his best to make our video great.
Cianna Sellers- Throughout this project she and also Montana had been the biggest part of our project. Cianna had good communication, and people skills with interviews with the people of The Well. I believe without her, this project would’ve been much harder to organize and schedule dates to work with.
Montana Mosher- Throughout this project she and also Cianna had been the biggest part of our project. Montana Mosher had excellent communication, people skills, and computer skills as well, almost jack of all trades. She had put all of her energy into this project as much as we did by putting in tons of hours into the videos that she worked so hard on. I believe without her, this project would be much more difficult without someone with expertise in video making.
Stephanie- Throughout this project, she had been trying her best to get involved but due to circumstances that weren't in her control made her not be around us for a while. However, near the end of our project she came back and helped Montana with the video to The Well in which it turned out wonderfully. So, all in all, she had been a great help to this project.
Myself- Throughout this project, I’ve hadn’t done too much at all. I didn’t help with the video, the interviews, nor the reflection as well. I couldn’t go to The Well due to the classroom work, so I wasn’t as involved with the project as much as Cianna, Montana, Denver, and Stephanie because they did all of the work while I sat on the sideline. Even though I didn’t do much, that doesn’t mean to hurt the rest of them who worked hard on this project.