Bryan Hoffman Convergence Proposal Pitch

Screencap from a short doc
 I shot last year featuring some one facing eviction

One of the most powerful things to come from the convergence of media outlets and public forums in the form of the internet is it's ability to give a voice to those that before had none. Examples of this can be found all over in the last few years, be it the Arab spring, various grass roots civil rights movement or getting to word out for help in disasters. A downside to this however, is that with the inclusion of so many new voices, it can become hard to make them out in the cacophony that is the internet. And it is usually the loudest voices that make headlines, or, in this age of social media, hash tags. The ability to be heard has never been both easier and hard at the same time.

In 2014, 77.2 Million people earned minimum wage in America. Over 3 million households in the top 25 metropolitan areas receive public assistance as of the latest census from 2012. Obviously, these numbers are huge. And these numbers include people that I interact with everyday. An important issue in America right now is minimum wage and welfare. They have been argued over since when people worked in sweatshops for pennies and when welfare was first introduced in 1930's. It is fairly common to see many right wing news outlets and individuals criticizing people that earn welfare and people trying to raise the minimum wage. They say that both indulge in peoples laziness and leads to unnecessary spending. The argument is complicated when you also bring the idea of a “living wage” into the picture. A living wage is defined as, “A wage sufficient to provide the necessities and comforts essential to an acceptable standard of living” . The problem posed by this is that, what constitutes a living wage? Are internet, television and phone access necessary to life?

Photo from a new documentary that debuted on MUBI
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQu_gRcWoAANaR5.jpg

These are subject I want to tackle in a short documentary film. Being an amateur film lover and maker, I believe in the power of film to change and give voices to people, and with the advent of video hosting sites like YouTube and Vimeo and the proliferation of affordable, high quality video equipment, it's now even easier then ever to make a film and distribute it. For the short, I want to interview several people that are earning minimum wage or just over it, or receiving government assistance. I want to record their struggles living on the edge of poverty and give them a voice that might be lost in a message board or YouTube comment. I already have several interviewees that earn minimum wage and one that lives off welfare that are willing to be in the short. I will ask them about their living conditions, spending habits, food quality, how much time they spend at work, how they use the internet in relation to their lives, any challenges they have faced caused by what they earn and many more questions. I will also do research into what constitutes a living wage and whether these people earning minimum wage or welfare fall into that category. There are many living wage calculators devised by universities like MIT and they can lead to different results depending on what constitutes a living wage. For the purpose of the short I will only look at the state of New Jersey.

One of the primary reasons I have chosen this subject matter for Convergence is that, with the rise of social media, the challenge of being heard has now become a sort of shouting match where the loudest come out on top. When someone is working overtime to pay for their rent, it can sometimes be hard to get their voice heard with a simple tweet or Facebook status, let alone a short film. I also believe a short concise video about the subject of the living wage and the challenges faced by those living under the line would grab more attention then a single tweet that would be lost to the wind. There is an audience on the internet for short films and documentaries that could be tapped to get the word out.

My ultimate hope is that the short can help people fighting for wage equality to remember what they are fighting for and maybe even convert a few critics of welfare and wage increases. I will upload the finished video to YouTube and Vimeo and ask everyone i know to share it and to see how far it can get. Maybe with a little push it can make a big difference.

Photo of a family collecting welfare by Gordon Parks.
 Taken from the Gordon Parks Foundation website.

Update:

 https://youtu.be/Z6T8W7sWM9U

Select bits from one of the interviews of I've shot for the documentary