On making an entrance – a film based on the poem by Chris Emery

The films Damaged Enamel and On Making an Entrance are 2 films that form a trilogy responding to the poems of Chris Emery. Damaged Enamel also draws on sculptural work I have made based on bathroom furniture (baths, sinks, hand basins, dryers) and so overlaps with other contextual discourses that underpin those works.

The thinking behind the exposition of both these films relates to the ones for reading poems I describe in my reflection about the treatment for the poem George’s Song. For all three I have used computer-generated voices rather than real ones. The visual elements of this film is far simpler than for George’s Song.

On Making an Entrance film still from the poem by Chris Emery. image: Gregory Hayman

For On making an entrance was much more straightforward, I wanted to see whether I could use a titles effect to deliver the words of the poem. But I have played with the usual placing of this Star Wars type title. It is more of an end title sequence and I have turned that around to suggest beginning (Making an Entrance). This was because the poem had a filmic or cinematic quality to it and I wanted to reflect that in the filmed element of my work. The voice has a West Coast American accent and I thought that worked well with the cinematic elements too.

In terms of showing the work, I feel the Making an Entrance deserves a cinematic screen to give full effect to the 3D animation of the titles for words. Damaged Enamel is far more of an interior piece and could be shown on a small monitor or projected into a bathroom space or even onto an area of porcelain.

George’s Song – a video artwork

George’s Song – this artwork is the first of my responses to a collaboration with the poet Chris Emery. The poem is a non-narrative, textural poem. I did not want to film elements as they appear in the poem, even though this might have been one option, rather, I preferred to cogitate on the poem and over a series of readings began to develop a feeling for it, within the language of film and using elements I had experimented with previously in film works of art.

There were lines that suggested the act of looking or observing, and I thought about sensory organs–the eyes–that enable this to happen. I also wanted to avoid the poems being read either by the poet or actors or indeed anyone who might distract from the words by imbibing them with emotion or a poetic resonance. I have very strong feelings about the reading of poetry and particularly hate the declamatory or singsongy style with which some poems are read out loud. Witness the current debate that was sparked by the poet Carol Ann Duffy reading one of her own poems on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. (I think people agree that she is a very fine poet, but that her reading of her own poems does not always do them justice). The computer-generated voice I used avoided any meaning or emotion being placed on the words or the poems; the words are merely sounded as words together and for me begin to let the poem and indeed the poet speak for them.

The decision to film a part of the body, the lips, and use the mouth for eyes in a stitch together film, was made because I wanted to link the act of observing with the act of speaking the poem. The use of the sprout (the green object acting as eyeball) was a response to the phrase in the poem about the ‘measled grapes’; I didn’t want a measled grape – even if I had one.

I think the film works well with or without sound (but I do need to think about how audio reverberates in some locations and that headphones might be a solution in some locations). The film produced a variety of reactions from disgust, to laughter, and curiosity, and as such, worked well. It prompted discussion and discourse and its exposition largely met most of what I had hoped it would achieve.