~ Filmmaker: Joanna Kohler ~

Having intended to merely pick on an oil company, the poem goes awry, by Bob Hicok

“An ounce of humility goes a long way in this grounded adaptation of Bob Hicok’s runaway musings on big oil by documentarian Joanna Kohler,” say the folks at Motionpoems. Visit their website for the text of the poem and seven snapshots from behind the scenes in the production of the film. (My favorite is captioned: “Everyone waits and works with the cow’s mood in a single-car garage.”) In this month’s Motionpoems newsletter, Kohler says:

This poem’s most important moment for me was the invitation to being honest with ourselves. I was attracted to this poem’s critical reflection and struggle to put all the pieces together.

My biggest challenge in turning this piece into a film was getting a cow into a South Minneapolis Garage. I had a kick-butt crew who worked some film magic!

I thought it was critical to have a moment in the film that shows the “mass” of what I felt Bob was holding in his words. From a distance a cow is pretty and fun to look at. Up close they are huge, breathing, dirty, sweating and alive. Which is an example of the effort I thought the speaker was trying to make at seeing himself closer.

It’s great to see Motionpoems branching out beyond animation. This is a true videopoem, and a very successful one indeed.