Poet: Amir Sulaiman

Black Swan by Amir Sulaiman

Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

Amir Sulaiman writes,

This an installment of our new art series called VisualVerse. Mustafa and are collaborating on short 24hr mash-ups of his filming and my poetry. sometimes i will write and record something and he shoots to it. other times, he’ll shoot and ill write to it. all done in 24hrs

Click through for poem-text and explication — unnecessary, in my opinion. But Mustafa Davis’ description of the filming process is interesting:

I shot this on f/1.4 – 50mm prime lens overcranked at 60fps (slow motion) using a single tungsten light. I moistened the warehouse floor to get the mirrored look in the video. The entire video is in reverse. I decided to pour ash down over the frame to trick the eye into thinking the video was playing correctly (as the ashes appeared like smoke rising when played back in reverse). This is a single continuous shot. The flames and water are real. This is the RAW out of camera footage. No effects.

For more on Amir Sulaiman, visit his website. And Mustafa Davis is here.