FRIDAY VIDEO/FILM POEM: R.W. Perkins' 'PROFILE'

Profile By. R.W. Perkins from R.W. Perkins on YouTube.

General Description

Profile is a stream of consciousness combination of poetry and prose. The visuals of the film were intended to represent the chaos of thought.

Overall Description

There are several stories behind this film. Let's start with the genesis of this film poem. A friend had looked over some of my past written works, then started comparing it to my new films. He made an observation; that much of my older work would be considered stream of consciousness, and that I should try implementing that style in some of my film poems.

As the conversation evolved, this suggestion became more of a challenge; as we then tried to implement rules as to how something stream of consciousness could or would be filmed.

My first thought was the film would have to be written, shot and edited simultaneously, I still like the idea, but for my first attempt I decided it was a little ambitious.

So we decided that the rules would be based mostly around the written word. There were only 2 rules, but they were tough. I had 30 minutes to write, then 30 minutes to do a reading. Whatever I came up with in that hour would be the gospel, no edits or rewrites.

At his website, R.W. Perkins writes, "Both the subject and name of the poem where directly influenced by online social identities, blurbs about one's life creating a narrative of their day. I feel as though many people have begun to reveal themselves through still images and abbreviated phrases, it's almost as though brevity is becoming a new language. This "abbreviated language" in many ways reminds me of poetry. I started thinking of William Carlos Williams' "This Is Just To Say" as a text, a tweet, or blog post. Then I started thinking of the ridiculousness of someone sharing every waking moment of one's life. "Holy shit!" I thought. Sounds a lot like a poet or a writer. What great inspiration for a poem."

R.W. Perkins speaks about the process he underwent making this videopoem, from its inception through to the challenge he gave himself to write and record the poems within a tight timeframe of one hour, changes in the style after watching The Boston Strangler one night, "I was now shooting a 1960-70 action, adventure spy film inspired videopoem,"and the Kerouac and Nietzsche quotes. He says, "I wanted something that felt very gritty and real, like something that you would shoot and post on your facebook page to laugh at with your family and friends. So I started filming and shooting pictures from my iphone. I had just recently fell in love with my new hipstamatic app..."

R.W. Perkins has it all in this video. When I saw it I felt it was a marker of our era. That surely many films of this type will follow, but his was the first. Identity in the twenty-first century is shaped by social media sites. Your life is not contained in your private diaries and photo albums anymore; it's all on-line now. The notion of who we are has never been more global or more revealing.

One's Facebook profile updates and photo albums provide many snapshots of a life. R.W. Perkins has captured that sense of a collided life, a life of snapshots and home videos and snatches of writing. It is a fast-paced life. We describe ourselves to each other. There are millions of us. Facebook is approaching 1/7th of the world's population. It is a social media site that is creating a twenty-first sense of self.

Put it all together and you get, PROFILE. On his website, R.W. Perkins offers his essay on his videopoem, Profiles, as his Profile.
R.W. Perkins "is a filmmaker and poet living and working in Fort Collins, Colorado. A relative newcomer to the independent film scene and literary community, he has worked in video production for five years, producing many television and web commercials as well as many small business documentaries. In late 2009 Perkins created Juteback Productions as a means to showcase some of his more creative endeavors."

Profile is slick, professionally edited - superb timing, a dancing timeline of photos and videos, nothing hand-held here, so a profile that's already public, bare shots of the intimate here and there, a poem of depth that's echoes the Facebook Timeline. Look at the creation and expression of identity; our shifting subjectivities.

Writing this article I went through the videopoem slowly making detailed notes. Rather than summarize, I share with you my notes:

…begins with the speaking lips, moustache and beard appearing… Pink title lettering… then split screens, some present tense, the author/filmmaker, and others from stock footage, older, yet intense… by the end of the introductory title we know we are in the hands of a professional filmmaker, R.W. Perkins comes by this through his day job making commercials and documentaries, but brings those techniques to film poetry. The music has a great beat, tribal ambient. He cuts the video to the music, and it is very effective.

"PROFILE. I am awake," he begins, at the bathroom mirror. There are two images of him, from behind and reflected in the mirror, "prepared and ready for the day, prepared for the onslaught." The dogs get fed on a stage in which the curtains are their lines of stainless steel dog bowls.

The interspersion of Hipstamatic cell phone photos is brilliant. Coloured brightly, they stand out as markers of the photographed and post-processed world we live in.

Coffee is footage from an old diner… and so it goes. The lettering, when it appears, is consistent, and it becomes a striking visual element on par with the video clips and the snappy photos.

The working day is clips of factories from the 1940s: "Laborious: Working Hard OR Hardly Working" and the ubiquitous smiley.

The small pleasures to come of one's life roll up the side like a slowed film series of snapshots colourized in the Hipstamatic app.

He goes forward into the day; then we find out he hasn't left the morning mirror yet. There is a screen where he has a bathroom mirror video in colour, one running in black and white, and two bright red and yellow Hipstamatic iPhone photos. This is the modern Profile, indeed.

"Cut to: PROFILE." And there are a fast series of snapshots, some perhaps of the author/filmmaker, some of found stock footage, fast

"The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to." Friedrich Nietzsche

Cut to. Lots of close-ups of the eyes of the author/filmmaker/

The supermarket makes an appearance in black and white with a change in music, to what I'd call 'skating at the park on friday night' music. Musak.

Yes, we all think about saving .20cents off a brand of yoghurt we know we won't like. This is very real. Songs get stuck in our heads.

Snap back to, PROFILE.

Beach scene, and the ear. Listening. We began with the mouth. Then the mirror.

Tints change on found footage and photos. There is a visual aesthetic that is honed to get your attention. Nothing drags, or is slow. Colours jump out of the screen. We are kept awake throughout.

"I exist as a solitary creature that craves the company and troubles of others." R.W.Perkins.

Then we are with him in his house staring up at the blue sky, "birds, clouds and jet airplanes". He watches neighbours who are out, a jogger, a woman in sun glasses pushing a stroller. "I do not feel small, rather… feel like a giant." And the word giant appears in white lettering in a split screen that has a black and white bird on the left and an unpolarized shot of his neighbourhood on the right.

"Perspective is important here. When compared to a virtual nothing I think you'll find I have finger, nose, toes and eyes, and …I am quite prodigious."

PROFILE

"I am a voyeur. From the comfort of my couch, my dogs at my feet, I can see the neighbours pace in front of their window" and we get terrific split screen of the voyeur in black and white watching as if from behind curtains a jogger… again split screens with different times of the events the author is relating… "She sees me; she is glaring back at me with the suggestive gaze, she is saying, 'her day is going about as well as can be expected… and she is thrilled she looks so good in her new sun glasses." they are in their homes and the jet airplane overhead is full of self-important… but I can't help but wonder-

can they see me?"

PROFILE

"I am awake. I can think, and I exist. And I can see that today I am prodigious. The sky and all that surrounds it will come and go, as I see fit."

PROFILE

PROFILE is a keeper - a defining film poem on our era. This videopoem may spawn a host of videos and films exploring the modern social media identity, in this snappy beat of a style, but R.W.Perkins did it first.