Nationality: Scotland

Currie by Dorothy Baird

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This new collaboration for the This Collection project features Anna Dickie, who also contributed a poem to the project (see “Same Place, Different View“), in charge of camera and editing, joined by Stefanie Tan for the sound editing. As Stefanie explains on Vimeo,

With the help of the local butcher, traffic lady and sporting residents, Dorothy Baird and Anna Dickie bring to life the portrait of Edinburgh’s unassuming suburb, Currie.

The bus 44 links Anna’s stomping ground, Haddington to Dorothy’s neighbourhood, Currie and this intimate collaboration adds to the magical mysterious connections the poems from thiscollection continues to unearth.

Anna used only photographic stills to piece together the concept for the film.

For more on Dorothy Baird, here’s a bio and interview.

-ed by Mairi Sharratt

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http://vimeo.com/15454436

Scottish artist and filmmaker Alastair Cook’s latest filmpoem (and in my opinion his best to date). Here’s what he says about it at Vimeo:

-ed is my film of a poem by Mairi Sharratt, from her as yet unpublished (nudge) collection This is a Poem. You can read more of Mairi’s work on her excellent blog, alumpinthethroat.wordpress.com.

It took a long time for me to begin this filmpoem for two reasons: I have been busy with this summer’s solo film and photography show as part of the Edinburgh Festival; also the poem is dark and yet meditative, lifting to a powerful crescendo and as a result I felt that I needed to introduce a figurative element. So I ruminated…

Mairi says in a blog post that the film will be screened at Edingbugh’s Hidden Door Festival, which runs from October 22-24.

Same Place Different View by Anna Dickie

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I’m glad to see This Collection continuing to broker and upload innovative films for its Edinburgh-centered poetry project. Oliver Benton and Stefanie Tan did the camera work and editing respectively, and “thiscollection.org was proud to collaborate with Rocio Jungenfeld to adapt Poet Anna Dickie’s work ‘Same Place Different View’ into a bricolage installation on the shores of Aberlady.”

Anna Dickie is a Scottish artist and poet now blogging at it’sabouttime. You can read the poem at thiscollection.org.

A Lifetime by Ron Butlin

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A complete short film spun from a brief poem by Ron Butlin, part of the This Collection project of poems by Edinburgh poets. This was written, produced and directed by CP Lucas Kao and Charmaine Gilbert; see all the other credits on Vimeo.

Landlocked in the Port of Leith by Samuel Jackson

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A collaboration between Scottish poet Samuel Jackson and filmmaker Ali Hayes, produced for the This Collection project of videopoems set in Edinburgh, which now has a cool new website. You can read the poem here.

Stealing by Carol Ann Duffy

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Update: this video is no longer online.

Directed by Gerard Docherty. Aside from the sloppy spelling, this is a fine video and seemed worth sharing. Duffy is, of course, the current Poet Laureate of Great Britain. I assume this video was made without her permission, and thus represents a kind of stealing itself — and/or an homage and act of generosity, depending on your view of intellectual property rights.

I’m going back to posting five videos a week here, at least until I can shrink the current queue of draft posts. So much good stuff coming out these days!

Adrift by Juliet Wilson

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It’s not often I get to see a new videopoem for the work of a poet whose blog I’ve been reading for years. This is a poem from Juliet Wilson’s debut collection, Unthinkable Skies, from the Scottish Calder Wood Press. The film is by the indefatigible Alastair Cook, who adds that this is the “the first of a series of films with Juliet, which will be premiered at my upcoming solo show at the Drill Hall in Leith on 29th July this year: outoftheblue.org.uk

Portobello by Morgan Downie

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Another film by Alastair Cook for the This Collection project of 100 videopoems about Edinburgh, and his second in collaboration with Morgan Downie — the first was Scene.

La Plage by Jane McKie

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Another film by Alastair Cook for the This Collection project of 100 videopoems about Edinburgh. I found the soundtrack particularly effective.

Scene by Morgan Downie

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Strangely enough, considering the flourishing poetry scene in Scotland, this is the first Scottish videopoem I’ve posted here. It’s evidently the first of three films Alastair Cook will be making for something called this collection, which promises to deliver many more Scottish videopoems:

this collection is a collaboration between Edinburgh writers and filmmakers inspired by these poems, which aims to create a detailed picture of day-to-day life in the city, with all its foibles and issues, through the media of poetry and film.

Basically, we have gathered 100 poems by Edinburgh writers, each poem no more than 100 words long. We’re now looking to invite filmmakers, sound designers, animators who will like to get to work on creating short films based on poems of their choosing. We then intend to showcase the poems and the films together, both online and at events across the city throughout 2010-2011.

The full list of poems is included on the blog. “Scene” is one of two poems on the list by Morgan Downie.