Digital Short

The Contributor Digital Short

Storyboard

Dear Friend

I want to share some ideas with you. I am making a digital short that represents the Contributor and how it is changing lives in the homeless community.  I wanted to include them saying their name and that they sell the contributor. The main thing that I want to do is ask them to tell me one thing that they want to world to know about the Contributor. It can be anything they want to share with me. I want them the have the opportunity to share something with the community that they may not have the opportunity to do if they were not in this video. It is about their lives. That is the focus. I want it to be real and vulnerable. obviously being a contributor vendor is a hard life, I want to be able to show that in the video.

From
Monica

Concise- Analytical Section

  Approaching Pat Reeves, a Contributor vendor, standing on the street corner, looked overjoyed to be selling the paper.  Once I approached her, she was very confused as to why I wanted to ask her questions. She was frightened by me, my camera and my desire to get personal with her. Kindly enough, after feeling a little more comfortable, she allowed me to ask her a few questions. She would not allow me to record the conversation because she had never experienced anything like that before. The answers where short and to the point but focused directly toward the community that she has built.  It was the only thing that she really wanted to share with me. Pat is not homeless anymore but continues to sell the paper because of the people that she encounters daily. 

The Contributor- Community

The Contributor is changing people’s lives by bringing together a community. Not only with a vendor and customer relationship but also with all types of people that walk by, drive by or interact in some sort of way with the vendors. Selling the Contributor is not merely about making money and providing a source of income, but also includes the relationship and interactions with people.  Approaching an old lady by the name of Pat Reeves, standing on the street corner, looked overjoyed with a smile that would light up anybody’s bad day. Seeming friendly from a distance, she was not very happy and completely turned off by the idea of being interviewed.  She stood there not knowing how to react. Like a hermit crab, she crawled into her hard shell for protection. She was quite frightened by me and my camera and my desire to get personal with her. Kindly enough, after feeling a little more comfortable, she allowed me to ask her a few questions. She would not allow me to record the conversation because she had never experienced anything like that before. The answers where short and to the point but focused directly toward the community that she has built.  It was the only thing that she really wanted to share with me. Pat is not homeless anymore but continues to sell the paper because of the people that she encounters daily. With a smiling face, Pat is sure to grab a stranger’s attention. The Pat that I first encountered, the one where she was a hermit crab crawling into her shell, completely changed when a lady that must work in the building Pat was standing next to walked by. The lady yelled, “Hello Pat, How are you?”  Pat’s face lights up and she waves back to the lady. I could tell that relationships formed like that really meant something special to Pat. It is why she continues to stand there on the corner of 3^rd and Commerce in downtown Nashville everyday.  

There is so much importance about building a special and unique community when selling the Contributor. It is also just as important for the customers to those venders to be willing to develop a community with them. After reading a book called City Streets City People by Michael J. Christensen, my eyes were open to how individuals should learn to understand the homeless community. Christensen says, “To know and love the poor, we must journey with them. To journey with the poor means to go and live among them; to seek to understand their needs, hopes, and dreams; to walk a few miles in their shoes, to learn from them and suffer with them; to go what can be done” (74).  There is so much truth in these words.  From an outsider of homelessness, being a part of this culture is advertently difficult.  To have the audacity and strength to put yourself into that role is excruciatingly complicated.  There are certain lines that you cannot cross and words that you should not speak. I tend to feel like there is this huge wall separating my life from their life. Sometimes, it seems impossible to ever try to jump over. We are missing out on the community and the personalities of these individuals that could be developed if only we are brave enough to conquer this fear. Community is a strong word. It is something that is powerful in relationships. The thing that continues to keep Pat motivated is that community and the friendships brought by selling the Contributor. If this paper did not exist, the homeless community would not be the same. This simple way of helping the homeless would be gone and there would be a detachment from this community.  As a customer to this paper, I have the role and responsibility to adapt and understand their culture and invest in these individuals to form a community.

Gathering Archival Information

After doing some research,  it was difficult finding some sort of archival information regarding The Contributor. There is a Homeless Museum in New York but is not to bring awareness to homelessness but to bring about a new social change in the art world. This led me to research artist that create art to bring awareness to homeless. As an art major, this is something that really grabbed my attention. I am unsure how this would influence my paper but it is definitely something that I would like to go deeper into. Looking directly on the Contributor website, you can view article posts that date back until March 2009. The website also offers press releases that could be very useful on gathering information regarding how the community views The Contributor. It is a good source to gain positive knowledge and feedback about The Contributor. There is a website called Street News Service that is an agency for street papers internationally. I am not sure how helpful this may be but it may be interesting to search for papers that are similar to The Contributor going beyond the US.

The Contributor Terms and Definitions

Community- this is formed between the customer and vendor.
Customer- someone that is buying The Contributor newspaper from a vendor.
Diverse Perspectives on Homelessness- provides many different views and information on the condition of homelessness while highlighting the contributions of homeless and formally homeless individuals.*
Genuine Opportunities for Advancement- provides homeless and previously homeless vendors a steady source of income.*
Homeless/ Previously Homeless- the people that are allowed to sell The Contributor Newspaper.
Nashville- The city that The Contributor newspaper is sold.
Street Newspaper- newspaper that focuses on the issues surrounding homelessness and poverty and is sold by homeless and formerly homeless individuals on the street.*
The Contributor- a nonprofit organization in Nashville, Tennessee that is based on the homeless community produced twice-monthly.*
Vendor- name given to a person who is selling The Contributor newspaper and who has earned the right to sell the newspaper.


*These terms are drawn from The Contributor Website. http://thecontributor.org/