Tutorial with Cluna: Tuesday 17th April 2012

I had a brief tutorial with Cluna today. I asked her for her feedback on my project. Cluna told me that she wasn't too sure whether she understood my film and was therefore unable to be too constructive with her feedback. This was initially rather disheartening, however it forced me to think objectively about my film.

Neither Lewis or Mike's roles are ever clearly defined. I selected Mike's scruffy, layered costume following inspiration from my own experiences and the photographs shown in an early blog entry. I uploaded two sets of photos, one set that I collected following my time volunteering at St Petrock's day centre in Exeter which are images of the service users that visit the centre, the other set are images I found on google so are much more stereotypical. Although there are certain elements of Mike's costume that are stereotypical, like the fingerless gloves for example, the majority of the attire was constructed from my own experience and knowing that homeless people are forced to wear items of clothing that they have collected from services such as day centres that have donated by other people meaning they are often quite ill fitting and old. Homeless people by default are forced to spend a lot of time outdoors, walking around public spaces with very little shelter from the elements, this means they often wear clothing that will be appropriate for drops in temperature or rainfall, hence the layers being warn by Mike's character. I have also included clips where Mike is answering the homeless questionnaire as a homeless person, his answers here are very stereotypical, for example he admits to having been sleeping rough for a long period of time and to using heroin. By setting up the stereotype of a homeless man within his character it confuses the audience when he switches roles and becomes the support worker, which happens continually throughout the first interview sequence. The overall effect I hope to achieve through this is to force the audience to question why they were initially so certain that his character was homeless and that Lewis's character wasn't, I also want them to question why they don't think Lewis's character isn't homeless. Despite his outfit being less scruffy, he isn't in a suite or dressed in a manner that gives him visual social authority yet initially it is believed that he isn't homeless. 

I have prepared myself for the fact that the audience may not all understand the story being told, the social status of Lewis's character is never defined, and neither is that of Mike's. The constant switching of roles makes the narrative quite complex, however, my main hope is that the audience will leave still questioning the stereotypes and social roles of each character. If this happens, then my film has been successful.