~ Nationality: U.K. ~

Visiting the Dunbrody Famine Ship by Elizabeth Rimmer

On 3 February, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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This is Alastair Cook’s 17th filmpoem, and bears the title of the collection of poetry whence the poem comes: Wherever We Live Now, by British poet Elizabeth Rimmer. Alastair writes,

This film came while I was concentrating on two other films, which will be part of my solo film, photography and glass show How the Land Lies in Edinburgh this spring.

This is also a farewell to Kodak, of sorts, as there’ll never really be a goodbye embrace- entirely made from Kodachrome Super8, wildly out of date. And a homage to my solace, Portobello.

Thanks to Erstlaub for the sound design, a drone star.

New Year Philosophy #5 by Inua Ellams

On 31 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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Art direction and animation by Jonathan Mckee for Smile for London. Inua Ellams is a word and graphic artist from Nigeria.

Mile End Pugatorio by Martin Doyle

On 26 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Poet Martin Doyle and filmmaker Guy Sherwin collaborated on this 1991 film-poem, produced (so the credits inform us) for the Arts Council of Great Britain and BBC 2’s The Late Show, and uploaded to YouTube for Luxonline, “the single most extensive publicly available resource devoted to British film and video artists.”

I Accelerate by Musa Okwonga

On 24 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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According to a bio at The Independent,

Musa Okwonga is a football writer, poet and musician of Ugandan descent. In 2008 his first football book, A Cultured Left Foot, was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. He is one half of The King’s Will, an electronica outfit that blends poetry, music, and animated videos.

Various “poetry in motion” projects on buses, trains and subways have been a staple of public poetry campaigns in cities around the world since at least the 1980s. Smile for London is taking this a step further by bringing poetry animation to the tube. The above animation by Amy Thornley and Louise Lawlor (Collective of two) is one example of what Underground riders will see, though I gather it will be shown without audio accompaniment. Let me paste in the text from the Smile for London website:

Our Mission is to bring the talent, creativity and culture of London to the digital screens on the Underground.

We LOVE London. That’s why we’re turning the cross track projection screens on the London Underground into a digital playground by exhibiting moving image by the best emerging and established artists around. Our mission is to unleash these creative minds to explore the medium of silent digital film with the aim of engaging, uplifting and inspiring commuters.

Following the great support and feedback from our pilot exhibition in 2011, we’re back to proudly present Word in Motion, our upcoming exhibition that blends the world of literature with the world of art.

A number of this year’s animations have been popping up on Vimeo. I’ll share some more of them here in the weeks to come.

Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith

On 23 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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http://vimeo.com/35205909

Video and reading by Nic S. for her site Pizzicati of Hosanna. Though sometimes I don’t quite share Nic’s enthusiasm for outer-space imagery, I thought it really worked here.

Vowels by Temujin Doran

On 20 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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A fascinating found-poem(ish) work in which a close match of image to word, rather than ruining the film altogether as would usually be the case with videopoetry, is instead the secret to its success:

This short film is based on an archival sound recording taken from the 1945 Linguaphone series ‘English Pronunciation – A practical handbook for the foreign learner.’

Thus the description at Vimeo.

Just to clarify: the artist himself — London-based illustrator and filmmaker Temujin Doran — does not claim that this is a videopoem or film-poem; that’s purely my contention. The fact that the words in the found text are arranged for maximum assonance has of course a lot to do with this impression. And on second viewing, one sees that at least a quarter of the word-image matches aren’t obvious at all, and that it is this element of regular surprise that makes it a videopoem. Tom Konyves‘ general observation on the importance of juxtaposition remains intact, I think.

Isn’t It Time We… by John Siddique

On 5 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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http://vimeo.com/23682194

This is “Hawthorne Moon,” the one installment in John Siddique‘s Thirteen Moons video series which isn’t an animation. It was shot and directed by the poet himself with final editing by Walter Santucci.

Piece Work by Robert Peake

On 3 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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Poet Robert Peake’s first venture into the genre arose spontaneously and in collaboration with his wife, Valerie Kampmeier, who provided the music and the idea, as she describes on her blog:

This afternoon was the last day of the Christmas holidays, unexpectedly sunny, crisp and breezy. After the departure of some visitors, Robert and I were about to go out for a walk and some tea and cake, when he suddenly pointed to a patch of light on the wall behind me. The reflections from the garden of waving branches and the wrought iron of a clothes post were casting flickering shadows onto the wall in an astonishing fashion, almost like a silent movie. Robert grabbed his iPhone and captured some video. “You could use that for a poem-film, “ I remarked, thinking about the beautiful short videos some friends had made recently.

When we got home from our walk, I began improvising to the footage on the piano, while Robert listened and wrote. Within twenty minutes we both had something. Remarkably, when Robert read his poem aloud, it was exactly the right length. He recorded it, synchronized it with the video, and then I recorded my part on top onto a different track so that we could experiment with individual volume and colour.

Read the rest (and visit Robert’s blog for the text). It’s always exciting to see a new poet entering the videopoem/film-poem genre, and the high quality and organic process here bodes well for Peake and Kampmeier’s future efforts.

Nicholas Was… by Neil Gaiman

On 23 December, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Videopoems
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It would be hard to top last year’s animation of “Nicholas Was…” by Beijing motion graphics studio 39 Degrees North, but Trine Malde and narrator Aaron Kay took this in a completely different direction with “a mixture of rotoscoped animation, live action and found footage to comment on the stress and evil of christmas consumerism.”

Slow Wave Through The City by Jacq Kelly

On 22 December, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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The latest filmpoem from Alastair Cook, who describes it on Vimeo as follows:

Slow Wave Through The City is a poem by Jacq Kelly, published by Colin Herd this year. It crossed my path digitally and I watched the film in my head as I read, my adopted city of Edinburgh speeding by.

Jacq lives in Edinburgh but dreams of moving to Sweden and becoming a viking. Until this happens, she spends her time writing poetry, fiction and trying to make a difference in politics as a campaigner.

Slow Wave Through the City was filmed in Edinburgh on 8mm film in Summer 2011 on a long walk with the poet; it was shot using Ektachrome Super8, processed in Kansas by Dwaynes.

By way of a coda, this is a first, a Scottish Filmpoem. Looking through all 15 films, this is the only one which has only Scots contributors for the film, narrative and music. This was not deliberate, but is fitting, since it’s devoted to Edinburgh.

What Draws Us To The Sea? by John Siddique

On 16 December, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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http://vimeo.com/26261699

This is “Holly Moon” from John Siddique‘s Thirteen Moons series. The paintings are by Dania Strong, Clarpupia Hernandez did the animation, and credit for direction and supervision is given to Walter Santucci. As with the others in the series, the original music was composed by Katie Chatburn in response to the video.

Song for a Towerblock by Michelle Green

On 15 December, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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A collaboration between filmmaker Glenn-emlyn Richards and Manchester-based poet Michelle Green for Comma Film. For more on Green, see her section on Poetry International Web (which includes the text of this poem).