Final Film Project: Friendly, Harmless but Homeless Documentary

The big finale of my november block, Film: theory and practice, was a 40 minute documentary about some aspect of community. We worked in groups of 3, and my group chose to document the homeless community in Squamish. We wanted to highlight the typical social stigma around homelessness. Far to often people have a curious mix of pity and fear when interacting with homeless people. It was an interesting, eye-opening experience that I am grateful for on so many levels. However, I am also glad it is behind me now.

This was my facebook status at 2:00 in the morning before the project was due... when I thought we had just finished:

"10 days- 27 interviews- numerous artsy shots taken- countless hours of editing completed- many hours of lost sleep - all for one 40 minute documentary... that is finally done"

Shortly ofter we ran into a dreadful series of unfortunate events that resulted in this facebook status:

"Okay - I need to update my status from last night, since I was a bit early to call the project done. So after a failed export, rebuilding 4 hours of lost work, fixing it, then losing half the footage and spending the next 8 hours re-fixing, the project is now done, and will be shown in class tomorrow. Please work!"

Everything worked out in the end. However, I did spend my entire block break (4 days of free time) cutting the movie down from 43.35 minutes to 23 minutes for the first ever Quest Film Festival. THAT was a hard task, but we were left with the raw essence of what we were trying to convey. It was a big job, but it turned out great!

Here is a link to an excerpt from the movie. As part of the filming process we held a campus camp out to raise awareness for homelessness. This excerpt documents that night.

http://www.vimeo.com/17016428

Here is a link to the full length movie (23 minutes):

http://www.vimeo.com/17867200