Draft of an article for 'Theoretical Mondays'

A draft for an upcoming article at VidPoFilm - Mondays are Video/Filmpoetry theory.

When a filmmaker approaches a poem or the work of a poet, how does he or she interpret the verbal images visually?

I raise this question because I think a literarian (poet trained in literature) who videos/films a poem will approach it differently to a filmmaker (lover of poetry trained in film).

A poet might envision the video/filmpoem as a writer creating a videopoem for an unknown audience - from the centre outwards, or from the words to an audio visual corollary; whereas, a filmmaker, familiar with traditional filmmaking techniques and a better grasp of audience, might approach from that position to the centre - the poem itself.

Let me illustrate with a found image on which I have mapped this process (click on image for a larger view):

In my viewing and making of video/filmpoems over the past few years, I have noted differences between poets with no or little film training who make video/filmpoems and filmmakers who approach a poem with considerable experience and background in the art of filmmaking.

Yet, despite the filmmaker seeming to have the advantage of knowledge and experience and a network of contacts in the film world, all video/filmpoems, by neophytes or professionals, seem to struggle to find a large audience. Video/filmpoetry is a fairly new genre and while there are many different styles one thing common almost across the board is the minuscule audience in comparison to, say, music videos or even trailers for full-length films.

When I see the viewcounts on the filmpoems we are looking at this week, I am saddened. John Scott is a strong filmmaker who has crafted superb filmpoems, and yet the view counts are in the hundreds rather than in the tens or hundreds of thousands as these films deserve.

Personally I think it is a matter of training the public to see and understand the art form of the video/filmpoem. Difficulties viewers have with video/filmpoems is an area of focus in VidPoFilm. John himself says, "I'm interested in expanding the audience for "poetry" to people who might not normally consider poems interesting because they seem old fashioned, dry and/or intellectual."

If we go by the general view counts on YouTube or Vimeo, likely an 'expanded audience' will occur only if the video/filmpoems are aired on national television and shown and analyzed in classrooms around the world. Perhaps John Scott is in a position to enable this to happen with his Elizabeth Bishop series.

                              

FRIDAY VIDEO/FILMPOEM: Two Elizabeth Bishop poems filmed by John Scott

John Scott is an independent filmmaker and television producer. He has directed 14 projects, including documentaries, and currently is a professor in the Television-Radio Department at Ithaca College in New York. He has won many awards and his work is shown in film festivals around the world.

The question I put to John in an email on the two filmpoems (Sandpiper and One Art) he sent to VidPoFilm was, "both films have a visual narrative that connects to the poem, reflects its images, intersects with the poem without becoming simple illustration.

In creating a film poem, what is your intent? A new poem that emerges from the confluence of the art of a poet and filmmaker? Or a way to present a powerful and important poet's work to a wide audience? Your work is beautiful. A joy to watch."

He wrote:

I am not interested solely in being illustrative -- I am interested in at times being playful with the way the visuals/sounds and the words come together in an effort to use the expressive powers of visuals and sounds. There's lots of potential in the medium itself that I think might otherwise be lost if it is simply slaved word for word to the text. These two versions are especially free because they were kind of explorations in/experiments with using various techniques.

And further clarified with what he called "sort of the party line on style":

I believe the beauty of Bishop’s poetry is that it is so loaded with the spirit of the moment, in the fragmentary, in the lush, in the juxtaposition of contrasting images and in the point of view of its subjects. What’s needed to make this come alive is a lyrical visual style to re-interpret this world into the cinematic mode. The movie needs to make use of the expressive tools that can come with the cinematic voice including techniques like time exposure, time-lapse photography, play with screen size and aspect ratio, multiple-exposure and slow motion. The result will at times be highly expressive in an effort to give the world of the poetry a magical or a heightened point of view that will contrast with the more traditional feel of the narrative segments.

In these two filmpoems, you'll see many cinematic techniques, Bokeh, split screens, time lapse, different colours, but the images connect to the poems, recognizably. They are not impressionistic, abstract pieces that try to capture the mood or feeling evoked by the poems but are rooted in narrative. It is not a traditional narrative, though. Rather, we see a visual narrative that accompanies the readings of the poems but that does not literally portray or overtake the poems they are representing. There is a rhythm of camera angles and repetitions that gives a cadence or a musicality to the visual images as they unfold through the filmpoems. I particularly like the voices - the clarity of the readings in both pieces is superb, as is the timing. And the young girl's voice in Sandpiper is, of course, arresting. Also the movement of a central image, a sandpiper in Sandpiper and a dandelion seedhead in One Art, into drawing, from film photographic image to hand-drawn animated image is beautiful. These are both superb filmpoems. Do watch, and enjoy.


direct link: Sandpiper

From the notes at YouTube: ""Sandpiper" is a poem that was written by Elizabeth Bishop in 1965 and it is believed that it was based on observations she made on a trip she made as an adult back to Nova Scotia. Bishop's adult life took her in many directions and places, and she has explicitly compared herself to the sandpiper and (presumably) both of their quests to endlessly seek (enlightenment?) through careful observation."



direct link: One Art

Director’s Statement: At the age of six after losing her father and then her mother Elizabeth Bishop was forced to leave Great Village, Nova Scotia -- a town whose distinct oral traditions and whose warm and colourful characters had an affirming, restorative power on her. This shock set in motion a lifelong quest for Bishop (a woman who would become one of the twentieth century’s best poets) to find home and the peace of mind she had once experienced as a girl. Her quest had many tragic consequences in her restless adulthood, but she solves the riddle of how to lose in her old age, and in her poetry that engagingly re-imagines her early years in Nova Scotia.


John Scott says, "There's a larger project in the works here and it's spelled out completely by accident and really in too much detail here: http://elizabethbishopcentenary.blogspot.com/2011/10/filmmaker-john-d-scott-shares.html"

Please join his mailing list (click on Elizabeth Bishop Project) to be updated on the progress of this exciting filmpoetry project.

                              

Filing Cabinet

Not sure why I am so crazy. I saw the offer of a small filing cabinet, painted dark brown with a real wood top - oak, a gorgeous honey colour. I sent a note. It was taken. A week later I received another note: still available. I have a strange belief in the way certain things pick you - this happens clothes shopping, for instance. Some items purchase you, although you have to pay for them (that's how it is). You know what I mean. So this filing cabinet screamed 'get me!'

I took the subway with my lightweight dolly (the one I bought at Canadian Tire some years ago and that is usually a clothes stand for the stuff I wear every day). I got off, checked for elevators, and found my way to the YMCA.

There was a lone receptionist, who was likely long finished working and was browsing the NET. I took my yellow nylon rope out of my purse and it was too short. Half an hour later, my coat, scarf and sweater off, sweating, I had tied it to the dolly after a fashion. This included using my nylon shopping bag as a rope joiner. The lone receptionist, who was a glamourous young blonde, leggy like a model, sat at her computer. The YMCA is moving, and thus giving away office furniture.

Don't ask. That's not it. Nothing to do with price, or lack of it. Some things just pick you. And I was picked by this filing cabinet. It fell once on the street, and I righted it. With a couple of trips in the elevator that supposedly went to the subway, a gentleman in a suit decided to help me and went on the elevator and found the right floor and showed me the way to the subway turnstiles.

My token didn't work, of course. But on second try, it did. On with the show.

Down to the Yonge line on an elevator I knew existed. The ticket taker in the little booth box had told me indeed there was an elevator to the Bloor line.

I got there, it was a challenge since the filing cabinet that had attached itself to me kept sliding to one side. Then a young teenager offered his help. He was like a tiny elf in a long striped grey and green hat. I thought he was about 13. He thought the escalator was do-able. I've done baby strollers and carried my dog down those, oh, and many different types of bundle buggies over the years full of heavy groceries, so I thought, hmmn, shouldn't, but the ticket counter guy lied. There's no elevator on this side. So down we go.

The nice young teenager, a musician, he was carrying a long, thin case, not a guitar, I'm not sure what, went in front.

The wheels of the dolly got stuck at the bottom of the escalator, and I started crashing into the filing cabinet (you know, the one that owns me). I fell and the metal moving staircase would have, well, it could have been quite bad. It was pretty scary. People behind me moved backwards and other people watched me crashing helplessly into the cabinet quite horrified. I yelled to the kid, "PULL the filing cabinet!"

He did, the ANGEL, by the big rubber wheels, and I was off the automatic staircase and on the platform. The sweet young man was pale and almost shaking. Clearly, he had not foreseen the difficulty I sort of had but dismissed. A couple of people asked if I was alright. Yes!

Behind us some people had travelled down the escalator with their dog. I told the young man that that was really dangerous. That if the dog doesn't move fast enough to jump off the bottom, the escalator can shave the bottom of their paws off. I actually met a couple at a park years ago with their dog's paws in bandages who said they hadn't listened to the warnings and it was terrible. Meaning, I sent this dear young boy, who I had thanked profusely, and said glowing things about, off with a little horror story about escalators.

I jammed the contraption onto the subway - no way I was going to get wheels caught between the platform and the train - chatted with some people and said I was glad no-one knew me on the train, 'cause it was embarrassing. They laughed. There was a label stuck on the filing cabinet that said, 'Toastmasters,' and it was, well, funny. At my stop I got off and yanked the entire rickety contraption hard, making a small racket, but no way I was going to let it get stuck in the gap between the train and the platform (didn't I just say that?).

My station is full of elevators, on every platform. I would not have attempted this feat without those elevators. Up I went, reached street level, exited, and the whole thing fell when I tried to round a corner. A nice young woman helped me right it.

That's three beautiful people who went out of their way to give me a hand. Blessings to all of them. What treasures they are.

At home, my son carried it upstairs. If you knew me, you'd know how independent I am. It was such a ludicrous quest, this filing cabinet that called to me, that I didn't want to involve anyone else, even if Wally, the man who sent the note, said I really should bring someone to help.

With the hair dryer on hot, and a dental tool, I scraped off all the labels, and the tape, got the remaining sticky stuff off with oil, and it looks great. It's going to be my bedside table, and I will fill it with my manuscripts.

Crazy woman that I am. :)

Next time something says 'I own you, buy me, or get me,' I'm gonna say, 'no way.' :) Ha! As if I have a hope.

(iPhone pic with a flash just now)

                              

VidPoFilm 'About' Page

An About page at VidPoFilm  - hastily thrown together yesterday, still a mesh of About and Submission Guidelines which will find their own pages in the coming months. The About page, as it is now, will give you a better idea of what this nascent e-Journal is.

Yesterday I received my first enquiry about the possibility of doing an article on a video/filmpoem, which I am doing, and you'll see it Friday.

If I did not wish to profile it in an article, it could have gone into my last-Sunday-of-the-month Group Show, a smorgasbord of video/film poem offerings that you send in and which I do not curate or edit (except to make sure they are video/filmpoems). The first one is coming on the 27th of November, if you are a video/film poet, send one url (I'll grab the embed code from the url) to vidpofilm{at}gmail.com.

VidPoFilm's About page:

VidPoFilm explores the poetics of video and film poetry and offers critiques of works in this genre. To enquire about submissions, email VidPoFilm [at] gmail.com.

Process Notes on VidPoFilm:

It will be another month or two before I have a proper description of VidPoFilm and requirements for submissions for articles.

My plans for postings:

• Mondays for articles on 'video/filmpoetry theory.'
• Wednesdays for 'video/film poets writing on video/filmpoems'; this can include interviews.
• Fridays I will continue to post my articles on video/filmpoems.
• The last Sunday in each month can be a 'group show' of video/filmpoems submitted by artists.
• Articles on specific video/film poets or video/filmpoems of course can be published on any of the remaining days during the week.
• (Note: If there are no video/film poetry theory submissions, or I haven't found anything to post, for instance, there will be no post on Monday. Also, I can tag posts so they will appear in a specific "Page" -like this one- that has its own RSS feed and keep the posts organized this way.)

I am currently grappling with how to explain poetics, and need to work on this before I can properly open to submissions.

Briefly, poetics, in the way VidPoFilm uses it, describes mechanics in some way or other. Video or film techniques, visual and verbal images and how they interplay, describing a scene to articulate its flow in the overall theme, etc. How you come to see what you see and hear in the film/video.

Any and all articles have to explore the poetics of a video or film poem. If they're theory, not just definitions, but also praxis, the how, examples of this in video/film poems.

A poetic essay, like the ones I've been producing on Fridays, is fine. You'll note, though, there is always some exploration of how the video/film poem was constructed -often in a description of film technique. Even noting how the images are cut to the beat of the music is talking about technique - to write about beat synch gives readers an awareness of that alignment. Describing the images as the writer of the article sees them enriches the viewing of the video/filmpoem, and offers another entryway into understanding the video/film.

Also, I am considering a Group Show once a month. I invite artists to send in one video/filmpoem they have made. On the last Sunday of each month I will post all the videos in one long post that is unedited (other than ensuring submissions are video/filmpoems) and un-curated. A video/film poet can send a piece in every month for the Sunday Group Show.

If someone would like to work on an article for VidPoFilm (and their own site), or already has one, they should contact me through vidpofilm{at}gmail.com.

_


VidPoFilm is curated and edited by Brenda Clews, who blogs at Rubies in Crystal.

Visit my group on Vimeo: vimeo.com/groups/videopoetry. If you are a video or film poet, please join and add your work.

Video and film poetry sites to check out: Billy Collins Action Poetry, Blue's Cruzio Cafe, Born Magazine, Camera Poetica, Comma Film, FilmPoem, Motionpoems, Moving Poems, Rabbit Light Movies, Rattapallax, Synesthesia, The Continental Review, UbuWeb: film and video, Viral Verse.