On Dancing Masked in the Tangled Garden

Look, perhaps I am outrageous, but at my age, seriously. I can do anything. Besides, I'm masked. And, anyway, my daughter was chaperoning me.

From a video shoot in High Park in June.

All this will be obscured in a long videopoem of three nature poems that is 22 minuters long that I may finish one day.



An early version of the central poem in Tangled Garden.

The little prancing figure in the background is what I would like to re-do, and I have footage, just so much work. And either re-recording the soundtrack or cleaning it up, so much work. It's been sitting on my hard drive for months. I'm trying to get back to it by giving myself just one small task to do. Last night I cleaned up the poetry track you hear here, which took hours, but should I record it again, or, if you know me, another dozen times before I pick one reading. The emotion in each of the readings of the poems in the full videopoem is where I'd like them to be - do I go with imperfect because it has the passion? Since I'm stalled, that's my inclination at the moment.


direct link: In the Hands of the Garden Gods (a poem I wrote at 27).

The final poem in of the three is one I posted here when I wrote it in 2006: Slipstream, oh the Tangled Garden, and I'm using the recording I made back then, too.

Anyway, the only way to get a major piece of creative work done, I find, is to take it in 'baby steps.' Rather than thinking a crazy week of no sleep or cooked meals, which no-one wants obviously and hasn't motivated me, I am thinking, 'clean up the poetry soundtrack,' 'fix the filters on the whole footage that you've mapped out.' 'Then start picking what footage to use in the background,' and where (some sections don't need it). Yadda, yadda.

When I finish it I am going to have to subtitle it too, groan, more work. The poems are so dense, the imagery quite rich, and sometimes I let Catherine Corelli's amazing singing drown my voice, that the viewer having access to the text is almost crucial.

I am such a perfectionist - probably you are too. Everything is the absolute best I can make it, given my limitations in training and equipment. That's how it is.
_
Music, 'First Night (Lilith's Seduction)' from Catherine Corelli's album, 'Seraphic Tears': http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/79547

                              

Stills

I prefer the upper one (it's faded out with the opacity option but on a black background which is why it's not shining in this still as it might), and that's the one I'll be using in the relevant section in my video talk. With photos arrayed around me, and drawings, and paintings, as well as digitally drawn images (like the one above), I realize the possibilities for adding art to the video are endless and that it's going to take me a lot longer than originally thought. This image alone of took hours - and I haven't figured out how I'll use it in the video yet. Motion key frame to expand and vaporize it? The image needs to be luminous - is it luminous enough?