This Collection: 100 Poems – 100 Films – 1 City
A big part of the Screenworks ethos is its focus on collaboration. While its standing as a co-working space is aimed at independent and individual freelancers, the potential for collaboration, support and discussion is an integral part of the project. Of course, collaboration is at the heart of the film industry, as exemplified by the credits to any feature film. Even auteur writer-director-producers such as Quentin Tarantino (he’s even credited as director of photography on Death Proof) rely on a huge amount of input and effort from many others in order to produce a film. This reliance on others is what sets film apart from other visual arts like photography and painting, which can both easily be solitary pursuits.
With this in mind, I want to bring up a project which may be of interest to Edinburgh filmmakers. The project is called This Collection and has been developing since the start of 2009, under the guidance of two PhD students, Claire Askew and Stefanie Tan Su Ann. Based in Edinburgh, the aim of the project is ‘to create a detailed picture of day-to-day life in the city, with all its foibles and issues, through the media of poetry and film’. Enter our buzzword: collaboration. The collection kicked off last year with a call for 100 poems of no more than 100 words, all based on Edinburgh and its various districts. Poets submitted work from all over Edinburgh – and in some cases from outside – and within two months, they were able to publish the complete list of 100 poems. The next step, which is now underway, is to commission responses in the form of 100 short films, each based on a separate poem from the list. The aim is to create 100 poem and film ‘pairs’ which can eventually be showcased together, giving a diverse yet collective impression of life in the city.
While the collaborative element of the project is prerequisite, the level of correspondence and involvement is completely flexible. Once a partnership is decided, the poet can be as involved or detached as suits both parties. Having submitted a couple of poems to the collection myself, I am excited to see how the filmmakers interpret them in their own way, but others are equally happy at the prospect of a more cooperative effort. Similarly, filmmakers are welcome to work alone or with others, according to their own needs. In either case, the very act of adapting someone else’s work for another medium is an intrinsically collaborative approach.
What is also, and perhaps equally, important to This Collection is its inclusive nature. Though many of those involved so far are experienced filmmakers, first-timers are also encouraged to have a go. In aid of this, the organisers have run a series of one-day filmmaking workshops. These are designed to turn an idea into a finished film over the course of a single day, sandwiching the actual filming between sessions on storyboarding and basics in the morning, then editing and finalising in the afternoon. Filmmakers are encouraged to bring along whatever equipment they can, whether that be a spanking-new Sony widescreen HD camcorder or a bog-standard camera-phone.
Beyond the initial basis in the poem and the rough time-span of 100 beats (to fit in with the length of the poem), the content of the films is flexible. Some of the efforts so far follow some narrative thread, while others veer into abstract mania from frame one onwards. As long as the film represents an appropriate response to its partner-poem, it can be as unhinged or as restrained as it wishes, keeping the doors open to both visual artists and more traditional filmmakers. Likewise, animation is equally at home in the collection, with some standout stop-motion already submitted. Already, in fact, each of the efforts produced seems to find its own niche simply between narrative or stylistic approaches and the varying tools the filmmakers have utilised. For those nervous of submitting, there is so much diversity amongst the films so far that it would be difficult to ‘do it wrong’.
Although the submissions process will be ongoing until around November, the collection had enough early submissions – due largely to the one-day workshops – to curate a showcase event over two days at the end of March. Set in the breathtaking McEwan Hall, the first day saw four separate screens set up around the main hall, each showing five or six films on a loop, with pamphlets of the poems also available. These were accompanied by a live city soundscape and improvised music. The second day continued this setup, but added performances by many of the poets involved with the project, resulting in a free-wine-fuelled orgy of multimedia. The event was a great success and had the organisation and feel of a finished product. This is all the more impressive, then, considering it is still a work in progress. Further down the line, once all 100 pairs are complete, This Collection has plans for various further events, including screenings and live readings at the EIFF and the Edinburgh Book Festival, as well as exposure online and in gallery installations.
The organisers are still keen to hear from experienced or aspiring filmmakers and more one-day workshops should be organised soon. The complete list of poems is available to view at the website, thiscollection.org, along with more information for anyone interested. Some of the films are also available to view online at the project’s YouTube page: www.youtube.com/user/filmthiscollection.
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