~ Videopoems ~
Videopoetry, filmpoetry, cinepoetry, poetry-film… the label doesn’t matter. What matters is that text and images enter into dialogue, creating a new, poetic whole.
Space by Nathan Lunt
A film by Geoff Gilson and Keith Allott (BadshoesFilm), who writes in the YouTube description:
Originally filmed and edited by me and Geoff Gilson in 48 hours for the Leicester DocFest 48 hour doco challenge in November 2012. We took one of Dave Dhonau’s beautiful tracks and applied it to the visual. After further thought we felt we needed some spoken word material too so we asked the massively talented poet Nathan Lunt to write and perform an original piece. This is the result.
A fascinating process, which I think illustrates 1) how close documentary and videopoem can be; and 2) what good results can come from presenting a poet with film footage and asking him or her to write an original text in response. I wish more videopoems and filmpoems were made in this manner.
I found a description of the 48 Hour Documentary Film Competition at the website for the 2013 Leicester DocFilm Festival:
The mission is simple, to encourage new and established documentary filmmakers to get out there and make something, as well giving you a platform from which to showcase your talents. What makes the competition such a challenge is the 48 hour timeframe. It’s deliberately tough because we want to show just what’s possible when you put your mind to it.
[…]
We’ll announce the subject for the films at Phoenix Square 5pm, Friday 1st November and you’ll then have 48 hours to use however you’d like to produce, film & edit a short documentary up to 10 mins in length.
For more on Nathan Lunt, see this webpage from the University of Leicester.
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be by John Keats
A film by Maia Porcaro.
haar by Sheree Mack
A film by Judith Dekker, who notes in the description at Vimeo that it was
Made as a part of my residency in Dunbar, Scotland for North Light.
This footage was shot during my time there, most of it even on my first evening. Dunbar has a working harbour which brings movement and sounds. But there are moments when there’s a stillness. I asked fellow resident and poet Sheree Mack if she had words for those times and she did. Her words compliment the images and Luca Nasciuti created another great soundtrack.
Haar is a Scots word which translates in English to “coastal fog.” In Dekker’s native Dutch, it can mean “her” or “hair.”
Sheree Mack writes about her own time in Dunbar in a post at her great new blog, adrift in the wilderness. She also kept a blog during her residency: Walking Our Way Home.
Need by Bill Yarrow
https://vimeo.com/83938341
A videopoem remix of a text at The Poetry Storehouse. Nic S. used footage from NASA and the Prelinger Archives, music by Matt Samolis, and her own reading of the poem by Bill Yarrow.
Le Chat / The Cat by Charles Baudelaire
A trilingual filmpoem (subtitles in English and German; voiceover in French) by German filmmaker Patrick Müller.
Rapprochement Crisis (If I say it was a dream, will you listen?) by Meg Tuite
Swoon’s first release of 2014 is a collaboration with the American poet and fiction writer Meg Tuite. In a recent blog post, he writes:
After “I’m sorry but I’ve witnessed what’s under your suburban bruises” it was clear for me I wanted to work with the words of Meg Tuite again .
Last summer we started another collaboration.
Soundscapes by my hand were sent to her, words came flying back to me.
Back and forth…Words got picked out, recordings were made.
[…]
The [sound]track not only give me a title, it also steered me in the right direction for the images. I didn’t want a ‘storyline’ or a strong narrative. They would stand in the way of the words.
On the other hand I wanted strong emotions, truthful. The whole thing needed a dreamlike feeling of alienation to. I decided on a combination of two different sources;
‘Ménilmontant’ (Markus David Sussmanovitch Kaplan, 1926) and ‘Max Fait de la Photo’ (Lucien Nonguet, 1913)
I added colour and some layers of light.
Read the rest. The video also appears along with the full text and a bio of the poet at Atticus Review.
How to Meditate by Jack Kerouac
Maia Porcaro writes,
This is a short piece shot on 8mm film. It explores the different aspects of meditation and finally finding yourself in such a surreal state. The poem is “How to Meditate” by Jack Kerouac, read by yours truly.
The Waking by Theodore Roethke
Roethke’s great poem is accompanied by found footage of aquatic organisms, which works surprisingly well. Video maker Paula Schneck writes,
“The Waking,” by Theodore Roethke is a poem about the unknowable, life, death, sleep and waking in the form of a villanelle. One of the most unknowable environments in the world is the ocean, especially the deepest parts with the heaviest pressure. Villanelles have a unique rhyme scheme, which is portrayed in jarring cuts between the clips of underwater life.
Brava!
Steve Ronnie and Liam Owen: a conversation about poetry and animation
Poet Steve Ronnie and animator Liam Owen discuss their collaboration on the animated poem Four Years From Now, Walking With My Daughter (which we featured back in September) in a new post at the U.K. website The Writing Platform. Here’s how it begins:
SR: So Liam, you’re not a big reader of poetry. What made you think about making an animation from my poem?
LO: That is certainly true, I am in fact not a great reader of anything. I struggle with words but have a love affair with imagery.
When I heard your poem I could automatically visualise each line, each moment, I was walking in the same place. This is not common with me but your poem inspired me, and as soon as you had finished reading it I knew I HAD to make it into a animation, I had to bring it to life.
Growing up together in the same wonderful place and meeting your beautiful first baby daughter who inspired you to write the poem in the first place of course helped.
