~ filmmaking ~
“Even the fluffiest piece can have a flip side”: an interview with filmmaker Paul Broderick
This is the seventh in a series of interviews with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse, a website which collects “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” Paul Broderick is a filmmaker. His recent short poetry film “CATS” by H.P Lovecraft will make its debut at the Peak Film Forum “Show Us Your Shorts” Short Film Screening in Colorado on March 11th 2014. Paul and his wife Arlene reside in Queens New York with their three cats Max, Cali and Sammy. He can be reached at gumppaul@aol.com and can be found on Facebook.
1. Would you briefly describe the remix work you have done based on poems from The Poetry Storehouse?
PB: I have remixed two pieces thus far from The Poetry Storehouse, poems by Dustin Luke Nelson (“A Short Film For Today About What Happened Yesterday“) and Lennart Lundh (“Elegy“). Both poems caught my eye and I had to give them a visual voice.
2. How is The Poetry Storehouse different from or similar to other resources you have used for your remix work?
PB: The closest I have come to anything resembling The Poetry Storehouse would have be the website archive.org, the difference being the amount of contemporary poems at the Storehouse with readings attached. This I have affectionately begun to call “shake & bake productions” or one-stop shopping… everything the film maker needs is right here. When I found out that there was a sub-genre of film production called poetry-film, it was off to the races.
3. What specific elements do you look for when you browse offerings at The Storehouse (or, what is your advice to poets submitting to The Storehouse)?
PB: I am a very big fan of horror and the supernatural. I will first look for the elements in a poem that I can translate visually with an emphasis on things that are dark. Even the fluffiest piece can have a flip side. Collaborative is the keyword. As an author, the poet is taking a leap of faith by allowing their work to be interpreted by someone they have never met, and this is the beauty of the creative process.
4. Talk about how the remixing process comes together for you. For example, does your inspiration start with a poem, or with specific footage for which you then seek a poem?
PB: I will read a poem and immediately start tossing some ideas around in my head and then the creative process will begin. For me it all begins with the author’s work.
5. Is there anything about the Storehouse process or approach that you feel might with benefit be done differently?
PB: The poetry storehouse is a wonderful place. When a poem, reading and visual style come together, it is a sight to behold…
6. Is there anything else you would like to say about your Poetry Storehouse experience (or anything else)?
PB: My experience here has been wonderful. I would however, like to take a moment to thank some of the people that have inspired me along the way: my beautiful wife Arlene, who puts up with my endless hours and obsession with film making; an old friend of more than 30 years, Ralph Giordano, director/filmmaker who first introduced me to film poetry; another old friend, Robin Taylor-Southern—a voice-over artist who has generously lent her voice and time to my projects; and a special nod to Erik J. Nielsen, comic book illustrator (Amphibimen Comics) and an old friend… thank you, Erik.
New at Awkword Paper Cut: videopoetry contest and a feature on Melissa Diem
Belgian videopoet Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon, is behind two features this month at the online magazine Awkword Paper Cut. His monthly column “Swoon’s View” focuses on two films by Irish poet and filmmaker Melissa Diem (also a favorite here at Moving Poems), balancing his critiques with Diem’s own notes about the making of each. It’s always interesting to hear someone who has achieved mastery both as a poet and as a filmmaker describe their creative process. Here, for example, is Diem discussing the second of the two films:
The poem, Appraisal, came about by exploring ideas of alienation and personal identity in relation to others through testing the physical and social world we find ourselves in and by testing the limits within the self. And of course these worlds in turn test us, sometimes relentlessly. It was this aspect of the poem that I wanted to explore in the poetry film. The initial idea came about organically when I was doing a quick frame rate test and Cayley (the little girl in the film) happened to be dancing about the room. We were only half paying attention to each. When I played back the footage I was moved by her expressions, the concentration playing across her face at certain times, her earnestness and innocence as she focused on positioning her small limbs in certain movements. It was that innocence against the great expansiveness of life rushing towards us, with its many tests, that I wanted to capture.
Also this month at Awkword Paper Cut, submissions are open for a unique writing contest: they’re looking for “500 words or less of prose, poetry, or flash fiction to match the video by award winning filmmaker Marc Neys (aka Swoon).”
The submission that best suits the video by Swoon will be selected by a panel of seven judges to be recorded, added to the video and showcased on Awkword Paper Cut including airplay on our Podcast! In addition, the winning submission will also receive membership to The Film Movement’s Film of the Month Club – Offering some of the finest independent filmmaking available! ALSO…Top selection along with runner ups will be featured on the Awkword Paper Cut Podcast!
Here’s the video:
Who wouldn’t want a chance to collaborate on a new videopoem (or videoessay, etc.) with Swoon? Submit by March 31. Details here and complete guidelines here.
“Images which don’t make sense, but seem to fit somehow”: an interview with Othniel Smith
This is the sixth in a series of interviews with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse, a website which collects “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” This interview with Othniel Smith shares a remixer’s perspective. Smith has made the following remixes: “Playing Duets with Heisenberg’s Ghost,” “Dirty Old Man,” “Florid Psychosis,” “Ethics of the Mothers” and “Mundane Dreams.”
1. Would you briefly describe the remix work you have done based on poems from The Poetry Storehouse?
OS: The films I’ve made, inspired by pieces from The Poetry Storehouse, have all been assembled from public domain material made available by The Prelinger Internet Archive and Flickr Commons. I am neither a poet nor a scholar of poetry; thus I fully concede that my interpretations may well be excessively literal. Nor am I a professional video editor, hence the clumsiness.
2. How is The Poetry Storehouse different from or similar to other resources you have used for your remix work?
OS: Most of the poetry films I made before discovering The Poetry Storehouse were based on readings of historic poems (by Shakespeare, Keats, Dickinson, Sandburg etc), taken from sources such as Librivox. Thus I seized on the opportunity to exercise my limited imagination on the work of living poets.
3. What specific elements do you look for when you browse offerings at The Storehouse (or, what is your advice to poets submitting to The Storehouse)?
OS: I’ve simply chosen poems which sparked something off in my mind — no logic involved.
I have no advice to offer to poets in terms of what work to submit, as long as they’re aware that their work may be subject to radical misinterpretation.
4. Talk about how the remixing process comes together for you. For example, does your inspiration start with a poem, or with specific footage for which you then seek a poem?
OS: Usually a phrase in the poem, or its tone as a whole, calls to mind an image from a film. For example, for Peg Duthie’s “Playing Duets With Heisenberg’s Ghost”, it was of a woman blissful and assured at her piano; for David Sullivan’s “Dirty Old Man” it was the innocent face of an adolescent Tuesday Weld. It’s then a matter of seeking out other images which make sense in conjunction with it. Or which don’t make sense, but seem to fit, somehow.
5. Is there anything about the Storehouse process or approach that you feel might with benefit be done differently?
OS: No — it’s an excellent resource. It’s especially interesting to hear poets reading their own words. Hopefully you’ll be able to attract more quality work from all parts of the globe.
6. Is there anything else you would like to say about your Poetry Storehouse experience (or anything else)?
OS: I’m just pleased that the poets whose work I’ve tackled don’t seem to have been overly offended (or if they have, they’ve been very polite about it).
“The collaborative process is enriching for everyone involved”: an interview with Marc Neys
This is the fifth in a series of interviews with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse, a website which collects “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” This interview with filmmaker Marc Neys (A.K.A. Swoon) shares a remixer’s perspective.
1. Would you briefly describe the remix work you have done based on poems from The Poetry Storehouse?
MN: If I recall correctly, both “Telegram” and “Today is your advocate” were your typical “Swoon approach”: first creating a track, getting ideas for images—”Hey, that one might fit perfectly!”— while doing so. If the track is good and the basic idea and feel of the chosen footage (originally intended for other projects in both cases) fits, they create themselves, really. I follow my gut and the flow of the poem/reading/sound to put the images right.
“Sweet Tea” was another story. I made a video (making use of an old experiment from way back) first, but it didn’t do the job. The track was right on from the beginning, but the video? It took a completely different approach—working and experimenting with photos—to make something I thought worked well.
2. How is The Poetry Storehouse different from or similar to other resources you have used for your remix work?
MN: It’s the same in the sense that there are poems (some of them I like, others not to my taste) and there are often fine readings. But it’s much easier in the sense that I don’t have to go through the whole process of finding and getting in contact with the original creators. Though sometimes I do miss that contact. Often a similar contact forms after the video is released, so that’s a good thing.
It’s a fine place to go to once in a while to check what’s new and see if anything “clicks.” I remember doing the same with the Qarrtsiluni issues…but there I had to ask the poet if it was OK to use their work for a video.
3. What specific elements do you look for when you browse offerings at The Storehouse (or, what is your advice to poets submitting to The Storehouse)?
MN: I’m very much a browser. Are there titles that jump out, certain lines that hit me? If that’s the case, I go looking and listening for a reading. I like my poetry audible, so I suggest much more “good” readings, recordings and voices! I know that not every poet is a reader, but getting their poems read out by someone else with a good voice, someone with a great (or even new) interpretation…and if they like their own reading, record them and send that together with the texts.
To me, that’s the whole idea: poetry is great, but should not exist solely in the form of words on paper. It might expand their view of their own work if poets and writers would read their works out loud more often, or get others to read and record their words.
4. Talk about how the remixing process comes together for you. For example, does your inspiration start with a poem, or with specific footage for which you then seek a poem?
MN: Both. Sometimes it’s a word, a phrase, a whole poem that makes me create a soundscape that then leads me to imagery, sometimes I have a track and images that “need” a poem…anything goes. I go with the inspiration of the moment. Take my pot of coffee, open up the computer and see where what leads me. That said, I put a lot of time into my soundscapes, and I believe they are the mortar between the bricks of words and images.
5. Is there anything about the Storehouse process or approach that you feel might with benefit be done differently?
MN: Not that I can think of right now. Well, maybe invite more “voices”—actors, poetry lovers, people with recording equipment who want to give it a try, radio people with a love for poetry—to record the poems and /or get the poets to do so themselves also…
6. Is there anything else you would like to say about your Poetry Storehouse experience (or anything else)?
MN: I still think it’s a great idea, and realized in a good-looking and easy-to-use site. Let it grow. Hopefully, more and more creative people will find their way to the Storehouse, and not only poets with their poems (though, without them, of course, no Storehouse :-)). Being not the greatest writer myself, I love the fact that we can create new things with these existing poems. It opens up the way I look at words, and perhaps makes the writers look differently at images and at their own writing. And in the end, the collaborative process of creating these videopoems, with and on top of creations by others, is enriching for everyone involved.
New, two-week course on film poetry from Literature Wales
Llenyddiaeth Cymru/Literature Wales is offering a course called The Language of Film Poetry. Let me just paste in their description of the course and instructors (none of whom I was familiar with):
Course 20: The Language of Film Poetry
31 March – 13 April
Tutors: Zillah Bowes, Asher Tlalim and Jane Corbett
Guest: Chris Pow
Fee: £1,750 per personParticipants will be selected. Please download the course document for full details on how to apply.
Whatever your background in documentary film-making, this practical course will help you develop your creativity and find fresh ideas in your work. During the course, you’ll make a short film poetry exercise in response to a written poem of your choice. In a series of workshops, we’ll focus on how to think about sound and image in a juxtaposed way. In the first week, tutorials will focus on developing your idea and shooting your short film, and during the second week, on editing it.
Zillah Bowes is an award winning film-maker and poet. Her films as a cinematographer include Enemies of Happiness, and She, A Chinese. Her debut as a director, Small Protests, was nominated for a Grierson Award, screened internationally and won, among others, the Current Short Cuts award. Zillah trained at the National Film and Television School, where she currently teaches. www.zillahbowes.com
Asher Tlalim has run workshops on Film Poetry at the Sam Spiegel Jerusalem Film School and the National Film and Television School in the UK. An Israeli Film Academy Award winner based in London, he’s been the screenwriter, editor and director of many of his films. His films have been shown at the Berlinale, Montreal, Hamptons, Hollywood and many other film festivals.
Jane Corbett is a screenwriter and novelist, who’s written award-winning screenplays for film and TV over the past twenty years. For many years she ran her own successful film-making course in central London and currently teaches at the National Film and Television School.
www.janecorbett-writer.comChris Pow is a senior tutor in sound design and mixing at the National Film and Television School. He teaches all aspects of sound design for documentary, fiction and animation. Before joining the NFTS he was a dubbing mixer and director of facilities company Universal Sound.
There’s more information in the linked PDF. The introductory paragraphs suggest that the focus of the course is more on making documentary poetry films than on filmpoetry, videopoetry, cinepoetry, etc., but that’s not entirely clear:
This is a practical course to introduce and explore the language of film poetry in documentary filmmaking. Whatever your background in documentary filmmaking, this course will help you develop your creativity and find fresh ideas in your work.
During the course, you will make a short film poetry exercise in response to a written poem of your choice. As it is the centenary of Dylan Thomas, you are also welcome to respond one of his poems.
During the first week we will explore the concept of film poetry and its parallels with written poetry. We will look at the differences between film prose and film poetry. In a series of workshops, we will focus on how to think about sound and image in a juxtaposed way. We will look at how to create expressive images and explore the use of non-synchronous sound and music.
Regardless of which sort of poetry film will be taught, it’s exciting to see such a course being offered, and the venue looks gorgeous. Visit the webpage to download an application.
Videopoet Martha McCollough featured in Swoon’s View
American video artist Martha McCollough has been making terrific animated poems, supplying her own texts, for a couple of years now, and I’m always happy to include her work in Moving Poems. Her descriptions are usually pretty minimal, though, and she doesn’t have a website, so I didn’t know much about her or her thinking behind the films. So I was very pleased to see her work featured at Awkword Paper Cut in Marc Neys’ first “Swoon’s View” column of 2014. She says, for example, about one videopoem:
I work as a graphic designer, and one of my jobs was to create a seating chart for the “Business Continuity Room”, which I’m told is an actual underground bunker to which key employees are expected to retreat during catastrophes so that they can continue work without being inconvenienced by interruptions (such as, I don’t know, hurricanes? nuclear war? The total collapse of civilization?) “It Turns Out” considers the fate of the “not quite key” employee under such circumstances.
“Trying Something New”: a seasoned poet chronicles her first foray into videopoetry
The Chicago-based poet Donna Vorreyer, author of A House of Many Windows, chronicled her first foray into poetry film-making in four posts at her blog, which are well worth a perusal by anyone interested in the craft or theory of videopoetry. I was honored that she chose one of my own texts to work with, although that does mean I won’t be sharing it on the main site. At any rate, here are the links:
- Trying Something New, Part One
- Trying Something New, Part Two: Editing & Recording
- Trying Something New, Part Three: The Sounds and the Fury
- And…it’s finished.
Thanks, Donna! And welcome to the cult. :)
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.
New resource for videopoets: one million+ images from the British Library
Thanks to Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing for bringing to our attention this very welcome news: “British Library uploads one million public domain images to the net for remix and reuse.”
The British Library has uploaded one million public domain scans from 17th-19th century books to Flickr! They’re embarking on an ambitious programme to crowdsource novel uses and navigation tools for the huge corpus. Already, the manifest of image descriptions is available through Github. This is a remarkable, public spirited, archival project, and the British Library is to be loudly applauded for it!
Read the rest. I’ll be interested to see how poetry filmmakers make use of this new trove.
(Hat-tip: @jacsongs on Twitter)
First glimpse at collaborative “12 Moons” videopoetry project
I first heard about 12 Moons back in August. That’s the videopoetry collaboration between Erica Goss (writer), Nic S. (reader), Kathy McTavish (musician) and Swoon (filmmaker) slated to result in monthly films throughout 2014, appearing at Atticus Review. Now they’ve released a trailer:
https://vimeo.com/79471054
If this is any any indication, the series should be very watchable indeed. See also Swoon’s blog post introducing the trailer, which contains a thumbnail account of how the idea for this “videopoetry calendar” developed.
Swoon on leading a videopoetry workshop in Vilnius
Belgian filmmaker and musician Swoon (Marc Neys) gave a two-day videopoetry workshop as part of the TARP festival of audiovisual and experimental poetry in Vilnius, Lithuania earlier this month. His blog post about the experience should be of interest to videopoets and poetry teachers alike.
The participants get to experience the importance of timing, the power of coincidence, and, hopefully, the fun of playing with words and images. After that two groups were formed (making sure each group had someone familiar with film and/or video and someone willing to write) to work on a project of their own. Both groups took the results of the writing experiment as a starting point; One group used footage shot by one of the participants and combined two ‘poems’ of the experiment. In doing so creating two streams of thoughts played out against two streams of images. The other group wrote a new poem (using the same basic idea) and added self filmed footage and filmed some new material the day before the second part of the workshop.
The second evening we recorded the poems. Each group explained and showed their work in progress. Giving me a change to suggest, answer questions and help out where needed.
The Poetry Storehouse aims to connect poets with artists and filmmakers
Just a few weeks old, The Poetry Storehouse, poetrystorehouse.com, is already beginning to live up to its slogan, “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” Everything in the site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License, and there are also links to off-site collections of work with remix-friendly CC licenses of one variety or another. The site’s editors, led by Nic S., are actively soliciting for submissions of poetry in English, and new material will be added on a weekly basis. The editors tag and categorize the poetry on the site fairly exhaustively in order to maximize its findability.
The Poetry Storehouse is an effort to promote new forms and delivery methods for page-poetry by creating a repository of freely-available high-quality contemporary page-poetry for those multimedia collaborative artists who may sometimes be stymied in their work by copyright and other restrictions. Our main mission is to collect and showcase poem texts and, in some instances, audio recordings of those texts. It is our hope that those texts will serve as inspiration or raw material for other artistic creations in different media.
I’m one of the site’s advisors, along with Marc Neys. My primary agenda is probably pretty obvious: generate more videopoems/filmpoems to share on Moving Poems! But more than that, I strongly believe that poets should be more open to artistic collaboration, and stop viewing a printed book as the ultimate destination for their work. And I think any filmmaker looking for a great short subject should consider bringing a poem to the big or small screen.
I’ve added The Poetry Storehouse to our page of web resources for videopoetry makers in the “Free and Creative Commons-licensed texts and audiopoetry” section. (And while I was updating the page, I also added a new section with links to free online filmmaking tutorials, to make it even easier for poets who want to have a go at envideoing their own or others’ works. Thanks to beginning poetry filmmaker Graham Barnes for the suggestion.)
