Latest video reviews
Poet Nicelle Davis on motion graphics and videopoetry
In a wide-ranging interview with Nancy Chen Long for Poetry Matters, California-based poet Nicelle Davis waxes enthusiastic about the benefits of collaborating with artists, animators and filmmakers:
You’ve also done collaborations with Cheryl [Gross] and others on trailers/motion graphics for your books, including motion graphics for five poems in Becoming Judas, trailers for both Circe and your upcoming book The Circus of You, and a video poem “The First Hour of Being Buried Alive in the Walls of a Half-Built Cathedral.” The idea of video poetry and moving/motion poems is fascinating. What kind of responses have you been getting from those who “watch” your poetry? What has been the most surprising thing for you about making these?
ND: Motion Graphics are great! Great!
As the famous Shakespeare quote goes, The play’s the thing. I couldn’t agree more. The “play” of twenty-first century is the Motion Graphic; these films allow multiple artists to gather and return to their roots—to a place of performance. The Motion Graphics feel like pure art to me; they are so collaborative by nature that no one person is in control; in this way, such projects are as terrifying and exhilarating as live theatre. I feel so grateful to live in a time when artists from across the globe can virtually gather to create a very tangible performance of art, poetry, music, and dance.
The most surprising thing about making these films is how well people work together. Very serious artists are given a space to play, and they do play with diligence. This is a sort of work that adults rarely get to participate in—it approximates how, as children, we created imagined worlds together—it feels like falling in love, but without any of the complications.
I’m also surprise at how far the Motion Graphics travel: they have been shown in film festivals across the globe. My poems go places I’ve only dreamed of. I hope they are leading the way—teaching me how to be a resident of the world.
La Curandera by Gessy Alvarez
A video collaboration between Michael Dickes (concept, camera) and Marc Neys/Swoon (editing, music) featuring the words and voice of Gessy Alvarez, with some additional footage from the Prelinger Archives and an appearance by a young actor, Ava Dickes.
One fascinating thing about this collaboration is that Michael Dickes’ original edit, with substantially the same images and the identical soundtrack, is also on Vimeo. Comparing them gives a sense of his and Neys’ different approaches to videopoetry:
I find Dickes’ approach a little less high-brow (for lack of a better term; I’m afraid I’m not a very sophisticated critic) but still reasonably subtle and nuanced. Left completely to his own devices, I’m not sure Neys would’ve included yolk imagery for a poem that so prominently features egg yolks, but to me as a viewer, seeing imagery of some of the things mentioned in a lyric text is not an annoyance as long as the film avoids out-right, narrative-style illustration. Plus, of course, it’s striking footage, which I gather is part of what made Neys so willing to take on the project. Here’s what he blogged about it:
La Curandera is a text by Gessy Alvarez that first appeared in here.
Some time ago Michael Dickes asked me to help him out with a soundtrack for a video he was going to make. I used Gessy’s reading and came up with this track: [SoundCloud embed]Last week Michael came up with his video for this track. I liked it and I especially loved the structure and the colour of the yolk he had filmed. He asked if I was up for my own edit.
Yes. He provided [me] with all the source material he had used and I played around with the same concept. Concentrating the visual storylines on the yolk, baby, girl, woman.I had such fun just editing. Cooking’s fun with the right ingredients…
The next issue of Awkword Paper Cut should be out soon, I’m guessing, so we’ll get to see how Dickes presents the two videos. In the meantime, it’s worth mentioning that APC has a well-curated channel on Vimeo, which showcases poetry films along with some other videos of literary interest. Check it out.
Uncommon Ideals by Daniel Crockett
This short film about surfing in the North Sea proves that a television-friendly filmpoem need not be literal or simplistic. The gorgeous scenery, imaginative shooting and subtle interplay between voiced text and images are evidently working for many viewers. A staff pick on Vimeo, it has so far garnered 143,000 views on the web, was broadcast on the U.K.’s Channel 4, “has won a variety of awards at film festivals, and was shown at SXSW,” according to the poet, Daniel Crockett.
Perhaps it resonates with so many viewers because it’s more than just a film about surfing; it shows how a members of a surfing community understand their relationship with a wild place. Chris McClean (producer and director) and Mark Waters (cinematographer and editor) are associated with the blog Doggerland:
The North Sea is a source of food, a source of fuel – oil and gas, a playground for catching waves or simply a mass of water that needs to be navigated. Few are aware its these cold grey waters that cover a prehistoric landscape that once joined England to Europe. Yet between 18000 and 5500 BC, global warming raised sea levels to the extent that this area known as Doggerland was engulfed by water and the area that had been home to mankind disappeared. This entire land sank beneath the North Sea. Is it this former land that we North Sea surfers now surf.
We are the Doggerland groms, heavies, hippies and kooks.
The surfers in the film are Gabe Davies, Pete Eyre, John John Florence, Nathan Florence, Dylan Graves, Chris ‘Guts’ Griffiths, Ritchie Sills, and Balaram Stack. Lewis Arnold and Chris McClean supplied additional footage. William Evans was the sound engineer, and they used a song by UNKLE in the soundtrack. Crockett’s poem was read by Jeff Hordley.
