Inspiration

Inspiration for our coursework

Our coursework is based on the concept of homelessness. I have looked into different homeless people as the inspiration behind our character and storyline.

I have looked at some images on google images when I searched 'homeless people'. This person shows how a homeless person uses a sign to beg people for help. This sign says 'I used to be your neighbour' this appeals to the emotional side of people in hope they feel pity for him. The sign is made out of cardboard to demonstrate how little he has and so he makes do with what he has. He is wearing normal everyday clothes that are nothing special to show how he was an average person until everything was taken away from him. The clothes have been distressed to show how long he has been without a home.

This image shows a homeless person sleeping on only newspaper. This would be a good idea of what to use at the beginning of our piece when the homeless girl wakes up however we were going to give her a little more than just newspaper. Behind the homeless man you can see an umbrella, some smart shoes and two black bags these are high quality items as he was a working man before his life turned upside down. You can see how long he has been on the streets because you can see he is dirty and has an uncontrolled beard growing, we will not be able to use this idea as our homeless person is a girl however she can be dirty and have greasy hair.

This person has a sleeping bag which is more of the idea we were thinking of using as she will not have been homeless to the extent of having nothing at all. We can see in this image that the homeless person does have some possessions which is similar to our idea as she will have at least a sleeping bag and her locket. This image also highlights the body language of a homeless person that has given up hope which we can take and apply to our character to show her emotions through her actions rather than words as we only have one line of dialogue, "scum".

This is an example of a homeless person uses a cup to beg for money or food. This image does seem unnatural and staged but we like the idea of using a cup to show by the mise-en-scene that she is desperate and just wants help from people. This homeless man is dirty, tired and old to show the effects of homelessness on a person which we can apply to our coursework by making our character appear worn down. This man is also wearing a large coat and hat suggesting he is cold additionally the way there are other people in this photo but they are out off focus suggesting he is lonely.

If we are going to give our character a cup for begging, her sleeping bag and locket then she is going to need something to carry it around in. I have found these examples the first is a shopping trolley which is probably too much for a homeless teenager. Which is why the second image shows someone using a backpack which would be far more suited to our character choice and easy to get hold of for us to use while filming our coursework.

Evaluation

From looking at these images I can see there are lots of different aspects for homeless people that will have to be chosen based on the background we want to give our character as some may not be suitable for the sort of homeless person we are trying to portray.