Poems by the Ocean Pt. 1
July 4, 2022
Poems by the Ocean is part of my ongoing Artist Through Artist short film series, where I interpret other artists’ work through my art of filmmaking, editing, and visual effects.
I’ve already featured the work of Canadian photographer and physicist Matthias Le Dall in my short film ”Broken Symmetry.” If you haven’t seen it, click here to check it out.
This is Part 1 of a three-part series featuring the poetry and dance of Jacinta Rose Durney, along with the cinematic photography of aerial cinematographer Joseph Dinh-Vu.
Hailing from Australia, Jacinta is a very authentic being; likewise, her poetry and dance performances are always very authentic and intimate. My focus was to enhance her work with embellishments of Joseph’s photography that centered around my interpretation of her core message.
My interpretation of her poem “Eye to Eye” (I Two Eye, Aye to I, I to I) centered around breaking co-dependency in a relationship and discovering the inner value of self while realizing that we don’t have to accept the routines we find ourselves locked in. More importantly, if we are unhappy, we should - and can - break those routines. Sometimes you should value “I for I” just as much as “I for You.”
I wanted to use shapes and geometric structures to allude to the symmetry and asymmetry of Jacinta’s movement. But as I placed objects in the scene, I kept their movement dynamic and fluid to show the shapes evolving from their original form, symbolizing growth and breaking away from the mold.
I animated the footsteps in the sand to represent her journey.
And enhanced specific details, such as her writing “LOVE” in the sand, even if the viewer wouldn’t actively notice it and only registered it subconsciously.
I invite you to see if you can find these moments when they happen in the film.
Initially, because I knew at points I would want titles and objects to pass behind Jacinta, I did a ton of rotoscoping, which is the process of tracing an object out of the footage frame by frame so you can isolate it from the background. Eventually, I discovered that I could get almost the same result by creating a luma matte from the footage by desaturating it and crushing the blacks and whites with a level adjustment. Then add a touch of gaussian blur if I need to smooth out the edges. That was great because not only did it save me a lot of time, it will save me even more time on the last two installments.
Here is a short video of the rotoscope process.
And because of the importance of valuing “self” in this piece, I want to emphasize Jacinta as the letter “I” or dotting the letter “I” whenever possible.
Jacinta wanted to add “Grow” to the end of the film, and it is placed in a jumbled mess of footsteps, as the tangled skein of our past, which we can all grow from.
With Joseph’s photography, every frame of the film became an intriguing photo of its own. Choosing stills to feature was difficult, but here I will highlight a few:
It is also because of the beauty of Joseph’s cinematography I wanted to present the film without the letterbox so that you can appreciate the entire frame.