~ Motionpoems ~
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Western Civilization”
Western Civilization
poem by Peter Jay Shippy
directed and animated by Alicia Reece (MotionGnome) for Motionpoems
lettering and lead actor: Emory Allen
make-up: Ashley Burke
music: Joey Verskotzi
additional animation: Valerie Lockhart
2014
Western Civilization is a well-produced, breathtaking piece. Based on a poem by Peter Jay Shippy, it was one of many short films to debut at the 2014 Motionpoems premiere. The design, poetry and voiceover work flawlessly together. This is as close to perfection as one can get.
I’ll begin with the design. Alicia Reece works with a limited color palette, then switches to black and white, then back to incorporating color against a scratchboard-like background. Add an old scratchy film effect, and we are taken back in time. If I’m not mistaken, the animators used actual video footage and applied the cartoon (special effect) using the Adobe program After Effects. This is a nice, smooth way to simulate animation. It appears that Reece does a lot of commercial work, which is apparent judging from the execution.
The poem is wonderful. It’s hip-hop coupled with American twang. Sort of like Paris, Texas meets Rihanna. The voiceover fits perfectly. I’m back in the 60s or 70s, tripping on mushrooms or peyote and looking for god. Or in this case Keith Moon (former drummer of The WHO.) The reference to popular music is a bonus. This makes the piece a total postmodern experience—or pop-culture experience if you will.
The combination of styles and the use of type all blend successfully, which clearly communicates how we can know, and have known, the American west. I’m ready to get in the car and drive all the way to New Mexico, or in this case Utah. I think it would be fun meeting up with a shaman who is familiar with rock music.
Western Civilization is truly a beautiful piece with a wicked sense of humor.
Bicycle Love Poem: Midtown to Canal by Jessica Jacobs
This delightful film by Tom Jacobsen (Pixel Farm) was one of the winners of Motionpoems‘ Big Bridges Film Festival in Minneapolis last year. Sophie Jacobsen is the actress and Jesse Marks provided the sound mix. The many nods to selfie culture recall some of the best video work of Alt Lit poet Steve Roggenbuck.
For more on the poet, Jessica Jacobs, see her website.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Working Order”
Working Order
poem by Dora Malech
video by Gentleman Scholar, for Motionpoems
2015
Gentleman Scholar is a group of solution-driven artists situated at the intersection of story, style and technology. Wielding extensive experience in strategy, live-action production, animation, digital and print, we help the world’s leading agencies and brands tell their stories.
—bio on Vimeo
Gentleman Scholar created fabulous effects to illustrate the poem “Working Order” by Dora Malech. They have used a combination of animation programs to achieve a fluidity that enhances as well as captures the essence of the poetry. I personally prefer this painterly approach (there are several brush stroke filters in Photoshop that imitate painting) to the usual bells and whistles that go along with 3-D modeling, Maya and whatever else, that intends to dazzle the viewer.
The pace is fast and combined with a motion blur, Working Order gives the illusion that the paint is moving. It would be great to see it in 3-D. That would be a nice touch.
I love great art that moves. Gentleman Scholar are highly successful in their application of digital painting. A good many video-poetry artists struggle to get the same impact using illustration, photography and/or enhanced video. This group shines through and brings new life to the genre.
The combination of Malech’s poem and Gentleman Scholar’s visuals has resulted in a stunning work of art. By using this method they have not only bumped poetry video up a notch, but have succeeded in making it the quintessential platform of the 21st century.
For Gentelman Scholar’s own assessment of the video, as well as the full credits, see their website.
The Long Deployment by Jehanne Dubrow
In honor of Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, and in the U.S., Veteran’s Day, here’s a poem by Jehanne Dubrow adapted by Nicole McDonald for Motionpoems, whose monthly email newsletter describes it as “a love letter to all who’ve had a loved one overseas.” The poem is from Dubrow’s new collection The Arranged Marriage (University of New Mexico Press, 2015). Read interviews conducted by Jenny Factor with both the poet and the director on the Motionpoems website. I was impressed by the depth of the McDonald’s feeling for the poem and for literature generally:
The poem itself is so lush, so I experimented tremendously…I felt texture and light was key. A balance of dreamy, stark, and intimate shots. And so the wardrobe also needed to be balanced with this thinking. I adore the dress Britt Bogan wears in the last section, as it captures light so beautifully in its delicate textured details, just as Britt’s character does. […]
Homer has always had an impact on my art, especially his use of Dawn as a character (“rosy-fingered dawn…” I adore those visual transitions.). And Penelope of course was the role model of undisputed patience and blind faith. Buuut, I’ve often wondered what kind of life she lived while she waited? What did she miss out on because of those virtues? Are they virtues…? When do we release the pause button and press play?
I also liked this quote from Dubrow:
I was thrilled that the filmmaker created a visual vocabulary for the villanelle form. She repeats and overlaps images (particularly of a woman who often uses the same gestures or movements again and again) to embody the musical refrains and interlocking rhyme schemes of the villanelle. In this way, the film is a great teaching text; it offers a visual representation of the fixed form, enacting the villanelle’s obsessive rhetoric, its maddening desire to solve the unsolvable.
Be sure to read the rest (and see Vimeo for the full credits).
Somewhat parenthetically, I can’t help noticing that in a year of poetry films produced in partnership with VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, this is one of the few that also has a female director, which presumably reflects a gender imbalance in the filmmaking industry at large. In the international poetry-film and videopoetry scenes specifically, however, many of the most innovative directors and animators right now are women: people such as Kate Greenstreet, Kathy McTavish, Martha McCollough, Lori Ersolmaz, Cheryl Gross, Kate Sweeney, Helen Dewbery, Marie Craven, Ebele Okoye, Nissmah Roshdy, Susanne Weigener, Anzhela Bogachenko, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and Motionpoems’ own Angella Kassube. It will be interesting to see whether this continues to be the case as poetry film attracts more attention, or whether men will gradually take it over as so often happens when an art or profession becomes more prestigious. I hope that those of us who care about the genre can help prevent that from happening by making special efforts to enlist, reward, and draw attention to female directors.
Big Bridges: The smoke, the cars and clouds, the quiet, the river
“I think of the smoke, the cars and clouds, the quiet, the river, often…”
—Leonard Gontarek, “Thirty-Seven Photos from the Bridge”
I don’t often enter contests or film festivals. I’m happy to plug away working on short documentaries and experimenting with new ways to create filmpoems. But I was alerted to the Big Bridges exhibition by my weekly Sunday afternoon Moving Poems digital digest, and at the time I was in Florida. According to the submission guidelines, there was about a month to submit an entirely new piece, never seen online before, to address the nature of our deficient bridges and infrastructure. I had a personal connection to the subject matter, and the Motionpoems and Weisman Art Museum (WAM) collaboration with artists, poets, architects, engineers and filmmakers piqued my interest. There was also a healthy cash prize associated. I thought, why not?
With little time to spare, I started looking for bridges in Naples, Florida, where most were new, though I found some good shadows and water movement to shoot during my time there. However, the main reason I wanted to work on the project was because a bridge within walking distance from my home is noticeably crumbling. In fact, living at the New Jersey shore, I’ve seen quite a few old bridges in dire need of replacement, damaged by years of rampaging weather and salt water.
As citizens we often take our bridge and infrastructure needs for granted. In the tri-state New York metro area there are many structurally deficient bridges, as we are in a major hub where consumer products are transported through the Interstate 95 corridor, on rail and by ship. The daily traffic on our roads and bridges is mind-boggling. My local bridge, built in 1939, is over 75 years old. It connects several small communities, and according to Transport for America, 13,618 cars travel over it every day. Surely when it was designed, engineers didn’t anticipate that type of usage and impact. The bridge makes a beautiful arc through the widest part of the river and gracefully curves between several historical homes. It has a movable deck (span) controlled by US Coast Guard employees which allows sailboats and larger yachts to pass.
I worry every time I drive over the bridge. It has been closed off and on over the past five years and is clearly structurally deficient, as the New Jersey Department of Transportation records and news articles document. What I observed and captured under the bridge is consistent with data and reports. According to a bridge repair log from 2008 to 2010, the repair costs were $1.3 million, and every year they’ve been steadily repairing the bridge, which has probably added up to between five and ten million dollars. A local newspaper recently reported a rough cost estimate of replacement at over $100 million. The county’s entire budget is $488 million. Additionally, there are citizens who are arguing for the same exact type of bridge and don’t want a taller one, and New Jersey has a Transportation Trust Fund that is basically bankrupt. This means that money needs to come from the federal government with approval from Congress. I’m afraid either these bridges will be closed altogether causing traffic havoc, or they will fail and lives will be lost. Solutions seem to be in short supply.
The Weisman Art Museum (all photos by Lori H. Ersolmaz)
The good news is that the Big Bridges exhibition takes on an ambitious and difficult conversation that should be in the forefront of our local and national concerns. The Weisman Art Museum and Motionpoems collaboration began with a poetry contest judged by Poetry Society of America Executive Director, Alice Quinn. There were five overall winners with three chosen for filmmaker adaptation, including Ann Hudson’s “Elegy with a Train in It,” Jessica Jacobs’ “Bicycle Love Poem” and Leonard Gontarek’s “Thirty-Seven Photos from the Bridge.” Instead of reading the winning poems first, I decided the project should begin with my journey to the bridges and then match a winning poem with what I observed and documented. I shot the bridges as if they were people: intimately and from every vantage point except using aerial footage. (Patrick Siegrist, one of the filmpoetry judges, shot incredible drone footage for the Weisman/Target Studio Collaboration Exhibit, Big Bridges: An Aerial Tour.)
Shooting over several weeks, I went into stealth mode to document every detail of four bridges, and it wasn’t until I went out to film that I fully appreciated the beauty and wide span of the bridge near my home. In the final edit I tossed out all pedestrians and used additional footage shot in Paris and Belgium a few years ago. Nearly all my bridges were filmed from below where I found them to be dark and eerie with the sounds of cars above whizzing and droning by on their way to myriad destinations.
I had an unusual moment when shooting a newer bridge. While staring through the viewfinder, I was surprised to serendipitously film two small packages tossed off the side of the bridge, where one made its way to me at the bank below. As it came closer I noticed it was a plastic-wrapped WAWA hamburger carton. At the time I thought the carefully wrapped carton seemed odd because if someone is going to toss garbage, it would seem to have been already eaten and messy. But, I didn’t take it out of the water to inspect it. That very scene still stays fresh in my mind. The experience resonated with Leonard Gontarek’s poem: “…There is a lot of isolation and silence in our world. Birds land nowhere. Say that. Code it in. Let it play…” I specifically placed a plop-sound effect to punctuate what I felt Gontarek was alluding to.
“A little darkness and violet sticks to the river…” I still wonder what was inside that package, but metaphorically the scene represents the seedy and mysterious side of life—the underbelly—which may serve as a safe haven from harsh societal conditions. Possibly a dry place in the rain for homeless, or youth looking for a secret hiding space for drinking or drugs and to get away from everyday life. While bridges are connectors between two shores, often we have blinders on by not considering what else goes on underneath those dark, dank and lonely places. Confronting these ideas brings a deeper level of meaning, not just as structural failings, but overall societal deficiencies which go denied and disregarded. I chose a repetitious clip of a vibrant highlighted arc to depict a flash of this idea—the spirit of the ‘other’ we often don’t let ourselves see.
Inside the WAM
The submission guidelines stated that filmmakers had the option to rename the poem with the number of stanzas used, and my film is entitled Fourteen Photos from the Bridge. The film used nearly all non-sync sound with a music mix, and for narration, the voice of poet (and Motionpoems director) Todd Boss, whose intonation, weight and measure became important to emote the overall audio/visual integration.
I was surprised and elated in early September when I heard from Patrick Siegrist, WAM Artist in Residence, with the news about my winning submission. I was flown to Minneapolis, all expenses paid by the museum, for a September 30th exhibition screening date. Myself and another winning filmmaker, Sam Hoiland, and two runners-up were hosted in a WAM gallery with public networking after the screening. Craig Amundsen, Target Studio Director and Public Art Curator at WAM stated they received hundreds of submissions, and introduced Todd Boss of Motionpoems and Patrick Siegrist of City Visions, who each spoke briefly to explain the idea behind the Big Bridges poetry and film contest and exhibition.
It was an honor and a privilege to have my filmpoetry hosted at the magnificent Weisman Art Museum, designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry on the banks of the Mississippi River alongside such 20th-century artists as Marsden Hartley, Charles Biederman, Georgia O’Keefe and Louise Nevelson. I’m grateful to the judges, WAM staff, Motionpoems, the artists, poets and guests who I met during the evening and will forever hold the memory of my time in Minneapolis for the Big Bridges exhibition close to my heart. While I started out saying I tend not to enter contests or film festivals, I have to admit, it’s a great opportunity to collaborate and learn about those who share the same ideals and values about society, culture and the making of art and poetry, all in an effort to find new ways for collective dialogue and ultimately solutions to our nation’s most important problems.
Watch Lori’s winning film on Moving Poems, and then find out about bridges in your state. —Ed.
Frank Gehry’s magnificent design of the WAM
Thirty-Seven Photos from the Bridge by Leonard Gontarek
UPDATE: Read Lori Ersolmaz’ essay on the making of the film at Moving Poems Magazine.
This is Fourteen Photos from the Bridge, the winning film from last month’s Big Bridges poetry film contest, sponsored by Motionpoems and the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, and I’m pleased to say that the filmmaker is someone we’ve regularly featured here: the New York-based, grassroots multimedia content producer and visual storyteller Lori H. Ersolmaz. Here’s some of what she says about it on her website:
My submission was based on the winning poem by Leonard Gontarek, Thirty-Seven Photos from the Bridge. Expressing fourteen of the thirty-seven stanzas, I used original footage shot in Paris and Belgium and filmed locally during summer 2015. I’m especially excited about this award as it provides me with an alternative visual storytelling approach to social issues. I submitted the film in an effort to open dialogue about the current need to address structurally deficient bridges and infrastructure.
There’s a good bio of Leonard Gontarek at the Poetry Foundation.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91”
Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91
Poem by L. S. Klatt
Film by Tom Jacobsen
Motionpoems 2012
This delightful videopoem glides along on a journey that inescapably comes to an end with the death of the great artist, Andrew Wyeth.
Visually this film is a real treat for me. I work with the same program Tom Jacobsen uses, Adobe After Effects. Jacobsen succeeds beautifully at weaving in the software while allowing the imagery to follow the words. The images reveal aspects of Wyeth’s work, creating an exquisite statement.
Continuity is a huge issue for me. Jacobsen’s use of two very different art forms, drawing and photography, is successful: the two seamlessly overlap without distracting the viewer. There are times when an artist will throw in a photo for whatever reason, and it doesn’t always work. But in this film it helps to create a painterly rhythm. The use of abstract forms such as ink drops also adds to the flow, assisting the foreground images as they reveal the spoken words.
I love the music, and I think it’s a good fit. But however slight a criticism it may be, I could do without the sound effects. Why throw in the kitchen sink when the piece is so pleasing and pure?
How Not to Need Resurrection by Michalle Gould
Motionpoems are really going from strength to strength these days. October’s offering is a powerful, highly effective film based on a poem by Michalle Gould. The film was directed by Diego Vazquez Lozano and Statten Roeg of Detachment East with a talented cast of actors and original music by Lozano and Claudio Aguilar Riquenes. (See Vimeo for the full list of credits.)
Motionpoems also produced a short video of Gould discussing her reaction to the film—
as well as a longer, text interview about the poem, conducted by Kevin Danielson. The whole thing is worth checking out, but I particularly liked Gould’s concluding remarks:
I really enjoyed the experience of seeing my poem made into a film. What I love about poetry is that there are so many different ways to read a poem, and having a film made out of your poem is a really unique way to view someone else’s perspective on your work and what they get out of it. Because I wrote this poem so quickly and instinctively, I’m not sure I had ever really sat down and reflected on what I actually meant by it, and I think this whole process has helped me understand it better than I did before.
Gould also blogged about the premiere of Motionpoems’ 2015 crop of films last May.
Upcoming videopoetry and poetry film festivals
Book your tickets! The annual autumn parade of poetry film festivals is about to begin. Some calls are still open: for the Vienna, Ó Bhéal and CYCLOP festivals (see below), and for the as-yet-unscheduled 5th Sadho Poetry Film Fest (deadline: October 30) and International Film Poetry Festival in Athens (deadline: November 20). And don’t forget that submissions to Zata Banks’ PoetryFilm screenings series never close.
September 15-19, Vilnius, Lithuania
TARP Audiovisual Poetry Festival 10: INTER-states
This year‘s special touch – audiozine, which will see poets Dainius Gintalas, Laima Kreivytė, Marius Burokas, Benediktas Januševičius, Agnė Žagrakalytė and others being recorded reading poetry in their favourite settings.
The last day of the festival TARP 10 will be dedicated to TARP academy, together with video poetry researchers Sarah Lucas and Lucy English from Great Britain, andan open discussion with the festival guests. The closing of the festival will be crowned as usual by an open mic readings and the opening of the „INTER-states“ exhibition – because it is just the festival that will end, while poetic states will flutter in the air for long afterwards.
September 30, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Big Bridges Film Festival
Mark your calendar for September 30, 2015 when we will reveal the winners of the Big Bridges Film Contest! The event, hosted by MotionPoems and the Target Studio at the Weisman Art Museum, will include a special screening of selected films from the contest. All are welcome!
More details coming soon at www.BigBridgesWAM.com!
October 4-11, Cork, Ireland
Ó Bhéal @ IndieCork Film Festival
→ Submissions open until September 15
This is Ó Bhéal’s sixth year of screening poetry-films (or video-poems) and the third year featuring an International competition.
Up to thirty films will be shortlisted and screened during the festival, from 4th-11th October 2015.
October 10-11, Worcester, MA, USA
Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
Rabbit Heart 2015 will once again be at the delightful Nick’s Bar in Worcester, MA! This year there will be two shows–
Showcase Matinee – Saturday, October 10th 12-3pm
Join us for lunch, and check out some of the fantastic material that we wish we had time to share at the awards ceremony (we got SO many good entries this year!) We will screen the best of the best that didn’t fall into prize categories, as well as curated showcases from renowned UK archivist Zata Banks of PoetryFilm. Watch this space for more information on the individual showcases.Awards Ceremony and Viewing Party – Sunday, October 11th 8pm (doors at 7:30)
The show you’ve been waiting all year for – the best of the best, the handing out of trophies, popcorn and fancy dresses, and your lovely emcees Tony Brown and Melissa Mitchell! Come meet your judges and cheer for your finalists – and see who takes home the sparkle-hearted bunny for Best Overall Production.
October 17, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Visible Verse 2015 Festival
Presented by The Cinematheque since 2000, Visible Verse is one of the longest-running video poetry festivals in the world. Video poetry is a hybrid creative form bringing together verse and moving images. Visible Verse selects its annual program from hundreds of submissions received from local, national, and international artists.
On the occasion of the 2015 festival, The Cinematheque says a fond farewell and expresses its great gratitude to Heather Haley, founder of Visible Verse and its curator and host from 2000 to 2014. We welcome Vancouver poet Ray Hsu into his new role as Visible Verse’s artistic director.
November 20 and 22, Kyiv, Ukraine
5th CYCLOP International Videopoetry Festival
→ Submissions open until September 30
The festival programme features video poetry-related lectures, workshops, round tables, discussions, presentations of international contests and festivals, as well as a demonstration of the best examples of Ukrainian and world videopoetry, a competitive program, an awards ceremony and other related projects.
December 5-6, Vienna, Austria
Poetry Filmfestival Vienna (AKA Art Visuals & Poetry Festival)
→ Submissions from German-speaking countries open until September 15
After an inspiring Poetry Film Festival in 2014 we are happy to go on in 2015. What´s new in 2015? We found a new festival location in middle of city center. Metro Kinokulturhaus. It’s one the most beautiful cinemas in Vienna and the result of a new cooperation with Filmarchiv Austria.
I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast by Melissa Studdard
This may be my favorite Motionpoem to date. The title poem from Melissa Studdard‘s new collection is impressive in itself, but it would’ve been so easy for a filmmaker to ruin it by choosing conventionally “cosmic” imagery, or by illustrating some of the more quotidian images in the text. Instead, as director/producer Dan Sickles told Rosemary Davis in an interview,
My way into this poem was an experiential familiarity. It’s an articulation of a moment of utter presence, where a mundane activity provides a portal to divine contact. The poem is elemental, and speaks of nature, life, and death. I wanted to aid in an ethereal, celestial experience of Melissa’s words through film, to inspire a feeling rather than a literal interpretation.
What was the first image you thought of after reading this poem?
The first image I thought of after reading the poem was a shot of the entire planet floating in space. Ultimately, that inspiration boiled down to this idea that size, a juxtaposition of micro and macro shots, and fluidity/liquidity in camera movement were the basic ground rules for how we approached production. […]I was in Puerto Rico for the premiere of my last film, Mala Mala, which we shot on the island over the course of three years, and that’s when we shot this, the day after our premiere. I was after a particular tone expressed in the poem, which I felt could be best represented by the raw, dense, natural landscape in Aguas Buenas and surrounding towns outside of San Juan.
And his approach resonated with Studdard, as well:
I love it! In fact, it is specifically because they avoid the predominant metaphor and related images that they are able to so skillfully tease out subtext. I felt much more understood than I would have if they’d simply shown someone eating a pancake and drinking tea. By pairing the textual imagery with this new visual imagery, they further elicit the sense of creation, sustenance, and elemental divinity at the heart of “I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast.” Rather than timidly toeing the periphery of the poem, they brave the thick inner brushland and cut new paths back out. That is as it should be. They’re not here to merely represent my poem. They’re here to create a new work of art.
Call for submissions: Motionpoems’ Big Bridges Film Festival
Five finalist poems have been selected for Motionpoems’ Big Bridges project, and now a second competition has been announced, this time to select films made from three of those poems. The deadline is August 10, so you don’t have very much time. Links to the poems and full details are on the Motionpoems website. I’ll quote the description from their email newsletter, which was more succinct:
CALL FOR FILMS: $2500 in Prizes
Motionpoems invites filmmakers to create short films designed to inspire engineers, architects, and designers with ideas for the future of big bridges. America’s bridges are failing, and Target Studio at the Weisman Art Museum of the University of Minnesota is stirring public conversation by mounting a multidisciplinary exhibit that dreams big about big bridges. A national poetry contest has resulted in five finalist poems on this theme; we’re making three of those poems available to develop into your own short film; you could come away with a share of $2500 in awards. The deadline is August 10, 2015. Click here to read finalist poems, read the guidelines and enter the contest.
The Big Bridges Film Festival will be held on September 30, 2015 at the University of Minnesota.
Motionpoems announce partnership with Cave Canem for Season 7, issue call for submissions
I was very interested to see this announcement in the sidebar of Motionpoems‘ latest email newsletter:
We’re excited to be partnering with Cave Canem as our exclusive content partner for next season! Founded in 1996, this organization is a home to the many voices of African American poetry. All of next season’s motionpoems will come from African American writers. If you’re a Cave Canem fellow, we want you to submit. Contact Cave Canem for more details.
As curator of Moving Poems, I’ve been frustrated with the relative scarcity of good poetry films and videopoems featuring the work of African American poets, though it’s offset to some extent by a proliferation of performance documentary videos. (And frankly, I might miss a lot because of my tendency to search Vimeo rather than YouTube.) So I am very cheered to learn about this. It seems like a logical development from Motionpoems’ partnership with VIDA for the current season to put a spotlight on women poets.
