Tear tatoo inspiration

The reasoning behind our tear tattoo was to make viewers think that our protagonist is a gang associate or is a criminal who has been previously incarcerated. These  connotations exist because of the tattoo's symbolic meaning on the 'streets'. There we have discovered that this tattoo has multiple meanings . one being that each tear represents a person the beholder has killed , another that each tear represents a length of time spent in prison and the last less common reason that each tear represents a loved one lost . In our case we chose the third (least common reason) although we additionally came up with the tear instead being a droplet of sweat which could be reflective of our protagonists efforts/struggles in the past which has passed in order to reach the Olympics. A key reason to making this decision was because in today's society although tattoos are somewhat accepted, amongst black youth they are seen as ways of acknowledging gang divisions. We chose this tear therefore to enhance our characters background and how prone he is to stereotypical judgement. The overall effect of the tear is to show struggle and hardship.

The way in which we wish to pull of this 'tear' tattoo is through pen ink. As tattoos are usually dark green we chose to run with this conventional colour which would make known that it is a permanent tattoo and not a fake. Another thing we had to consider was the stage in which this idea was created. Because this idea was developed after the first day of filming had been completed we were obliged to review clips and think whether or not we had shot any  close-ups so far which could divulge the absence of this tattoo which could later pop up and displease the audience. After contemplating we realised that there was one shot or two with the protagonists face yet his face could not be seen with great clarity because of the running motion he was in. Another shot was the close up of his face when he descends down the stairs and looks around , this however was ok because in the filming we had told him to only show one side of his face (which would raise suspense) and has now given us leeway to introduce this tattoo.