Butterfly

RESEARCH STATEMENT 

This statement explores the process of producing Butterfly, a poetry film commissioned by Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington to celebrate the opening edition of the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (APFF) in 2023. APFF, which I founded and currently co-direct, is an event entirely devoted to the celebration and showcase of poetry film, a media form that combines poetry, moving images, sound and music. The festival, which features a poetry film competition, workshops, seminars, poetry readings and film retrospectives, was funded by Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) and Wellington UNESCO City of Film, and was supported by Lighthouse Cinema, a local exhibitor. One of the conditions of the funding provided by VUW was that the event would contribute to the university’s strategic plan by both showcasing the skills of staff and students across its creative fields and leveraging VUW’s location in Wellington as the creative capital of the country. In order to achieve this goal, I proposed to deploy part of the funding provided by the university to produce a poetry film that would both represent the main sponsor of the festival, VUW, and showcase Wellington as the creative capital of New Zealand. Butterfly was produced by a number of staff (including myself as director), students and alumni of VUW, and was screened, out of competition, at the opening session of the first edition of APFF which took place on 2-3 November 2023. Following APFF, Butterfly was screened and nominated for awards at several festivals both in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas. The main challenge I faced during the making of Butterfly was the need to effectively meet the expectations of the two main stakeholders which supported APFF, VUW and Wellington UNESCO City of Film. This paper explores the following research question, which relates to the challenge mentioned above: how to make a place-based poetry film that showcases both the city and the university community? In the remainder of this research statement, I will first define the notion of poetry film and then discuss how the production engaged with local people and places. This piece will conclude with a brief overview of the new insights my collaborators and I gained about poetry film from producing Butterfly.

There is no consensus in the academic world around the definition of poetry film. In the most comprehensive academic work on this topic, Sarah Tremlett’s The Poetics of Poetry Films (2021), the author argues that since ancient times poetry has naturally intersected with other media such as music, singing and theatrical performance. Tremlett traces the origins of contemporary poetry film back to the artistic avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, in particular Italian futurism which theorised the convergence between poetry and screen media (Marinetti et al. 1970). Such convergence was also quite apparent in other avant-garde movements of the first half of the twentieth century, for example the work of surrealist filmmaker Man Ray. In the post-war era the relationship between film and poetry has often found its most prominent manifestations within the context of experimental cinema. For example, acclaimed experimental filmmaker Maya Deren (1963) frequently made parallels between poetry and film. Similarly, in the 1970s Canadian experimental filmmaker Tony Konyves explored the convergence between screen media and poetry both in his creative practice and his theoretical work, which culminated in the publication of his Manifesto of Video Poetry (2011). In the twenty-first century the emergence of digital technology led to the proliferation of poetry filmmaking while social media provided unprecedented opportunities for circulation and distribution. Although digital technology and social media impacted all screen media, it could be argued that they had a particularly strong influence on the evolution of poetry film. Due to its nature characterised by non-traditional narrative, fragmentation, connotative rather than denotative values, and polysemic messages, poetry lends itself to a multiplicity of screen renditions which can be realised through different budgets, technical competencies and modes of filmmaking including live-action, 3D and 2D animation, documentary approaches and so on. The experience of curating APFF has demonstrated that poetry film is an accessible media form, which due to its nature can be effectively tackled by both experienced and emerging filmmakers with vastly different budgets and skills.

One of the challenges I had to face as the founder of APFF concerned the lack of universally accepted definitions of poetry film, as a number of scholars and practitioners have often used this term to refer to slightly different media forms. Similarly, notions such as poetry film, video poetry and film poem are often used interchangeably. In her book Tremlett defines poetry film as “a genre of short film, usually combining the three main elements of the poem as: verbal message – voice-over or on-screen narration – or subtitles […]; the moving film image (and diegetic sounds); and additional nondiegetic sounds/music” (2021: xxi). It is the complex interweaving of these elements that give poetry films their uniquely associative character. Tremlett distinguishes the poetry film from the film poem which abjures verbal language for experimental cinematic language and depends on its audio-visual rhythms and tonal qualities to create aesthetic effects. The line between poetry film and film poem is very blurred and for the purposes of the APFF call for submission, we defined poetry film as any screen production that engages with poetry and poetic language understood in broader terms. The main formal restriction featured in the call for submissions of the festival was the maximum length of the films which was set at 10 minutes to both facilitate the programming process and guarantee the inclusion of a variety of aesthetic approaches.

The production of Butterfly reflected my own understanding of poetry film as a media form that does not merely adapt a pre-existing poetic text but attempts to formulate a unique poetic cinematic language. Furthermore, as mentioned above, one of the key goals of the film was the deployment and construction of a meaningful sense of place. The authenticity of place in Butterfly was guaranteed by the selection of cast, crew and locations. All the people involved in the production of Butterfly were staff, students or alumni of VUW. In the initial stages of the project, I approached two established poets belonging to the VUW community, Prof. Marco Sonzogni and Dr. James Ackhurst. Marco was responsible for developing the loose narrative structure of the film. More specifically, the brief (showcasing Wellington as a creative capital) influenced Marco’s decision to focus on a dancer as a representative of the local creative community. The poem, however, was also loosely inspired by a true story relayed to Marco by one of his students: following the death of her grandfather, in fact, the student discovered that, unbeknownst to his family, the grandfather had produced a series of drawings. The student granted Marco permission to use this story as the premise for his poem, which takes the form of an imaginary dialogue between the grandfather and the grandmother about the meaning of art, beauty and perfection. James Ackhurst complemented Marco’s text by producing a poem which describes the granddaughter’s dancing. Since the poetic text revolved around a dancer, I decided the film should feature a number of dancing sequences. In turn, that led to the need to choreograph such sequences and produce an original musical score. The following step in the production process was, therefore, the creation of an original score composed by William Philipson, a VUW alumnus and lead composer of Shortland Street, New Zealand’s longest running TV series. The music, which was inspired by the poetic texts, was performed by both William and Yury Gezentsvey (former first violinist of the New Zealand Symphonic Orchestra) and provided the basis for the choreography which was created by VUW alumna, Claudia Puti Holmstead-Morris. The titular role of Butterfly was played by Elora Battah, a VUW student at the time, while most of the other roles were filled by colleagues from the film and theatre department.

The film was shot at VUW, Toi Whakaari (New Zealand Drama School) and other iconic Wellington locations including Te Ahumarangi Hill, which offers commanding views of the city centre, Princess Bay in the south coast and the city’s CBD. In Butterfly, the Wellington locations are not a mere scenic background to the action but rather fulfil a specific aesthetic purpose as they are deployed to signify different stages in Butterfly’s life. For example, while Te Ahumarangi Hill and Princess Bay signify the exhilarating power of dancing, the gritty alleyways of Wellington’s CBD mark the transition to a darker moment in Butterfly’s life. I believe Butterfly was grounded in a strong sense of place both through the deployment of local creatives and through the use of distinctive and recognizable locations, which play a meaningful aesthetic purpose within the film. Butterfly successfully met the expectations of the stakeholders who invested in the project and achieved success at festivals both in New Zealand and overseas. Beyond the issue of place, the making of Butterfly provided a number of other useful insights about the nature of poetry film. In Butterfly, the poetic text informed the musical score, which, in turn, became the dominant aesthetic element of the film. The score provided the foundation for the choreography and once this was locked, all the other aspects of film form (i.e. acting, camera movements and editing) revolved around the music. In many ways the musical score limited my creative freedom as it became quite challenging to insert the original poetic text through the voice-over without breaking the rhythm and flow of the music. Although poetry was at the core of the film’s original aesthetic project, ultimately the poetic text, rendered through the voice-over, became a secondary element in Butterfly. It could be argued, in fact, that the film works just as well without the voice-over rendition of the original poems. Ultimately, I decided to keep the voice over to both honour the work of the poets and cater to poetry film festivals which require the presence of an ‘original’ poetic text. The making of Butterfly, however, highlighted that the poetic impetus of the original poem can shape quite heavily other elements of film form (in this case music and choreography) at the pre-production stage thus blurring and complicating the boundaries between categories such as poetry film, film poem and dance film.

PEER REVIEW 1 

Butterfly exemplifies the possibilities of poetry and screen media to convey complex themes in an experiential manner. The output includes narrative-driven poems and combines multi-modal artistic elements, showcasing how poetic language might be understood in broader terms. The poetry film is realised through the iterative momentum of intersecting components, assisting the viewer’s attentiveness to the multi-generational narrative that binds the contribution. 

The poetry film foregrounds the processes and practices that inform acts-of-making – in this case a process of negotiation between transdisciplinary ways of seeing as well as methods of transposing. Butterfly illustrates innovation via the architecture of its construction, inviting the viewer’s deep engagement with core themes. The voice-over poem focusing the grandfather and grandmother’s exchange is narrated in-scene as the speakers are seated on the couch, gazing out of the window. The viewer’s access is from behind, positioned as voyeurs of an intimate exchange. The poem focusing the granddaughter’s dancing is supplemented by cutaways to drawings of the dancer/subject, together with scenes of the dancer in studio and place-based settings. The scaffolding strategically and metaphorically reflects the temporal flips and turns of the poems: reifying themes of ruminative nostalgia and longing. The viewer’s quest for meaning is buffeted, bolstered and scrutinised “slantwise”, replicating the discontinuous nature of life narratives. 

Visual and auditory components augment the voiceover narrative in associative ways, creating alterity-infused moments as a connotative counter-story. The viewer’s immersion is encouraged by the rhythm of an original musical score. In this way, Butterfly expands knowledge within the context of transdisciplinary approaches to fractured narration – moving beyond adaptation – utilising multi-modal arts practice to build a progressive picture.

The viewer’s journey culminates in the poetic line: “the universe, like you, is but the drowsy arm of stillness spinning gently weird circles in his sleep”. Refracting and reflecting the words and images that precede it, this sentiment sends the viewer back in an act of re-contemplation – exemplifying the ebb-and-tow of the poetry film. The viewer’s experiential engagement with fleeting moments of reflection is accrued iteratively and scrutinised collectively.  

The architecture (and scaffolding) of Butterfly represent an original contribution to knowledge, formulating a poetic language that facilitates the viewer’s immersion in a narrative focusing nostalgic memory. Through vigorous and yet restrained handling of core themes, the output resists any temptation to prioritise one form over another, illustrating a deep appreciation for the expansive scope of a synthesised contribution.

Feedback/suggestions for changes to the research statement 

The poems are crucial for the viewer’s iterative navigation of complex themes including ruminative nostalgia and longing. Further, the poems provide an unobtrusive architecture for multi-modal creative elements, foregrounding the manner in which core themes are aptly conveyed via fragmentation, including connotative and associative manoeuvres. The poems bind the work. 

I do not subscribe to the view that the film would work “just as well without the voice-over rendition of the original poems”. In fact, I feel this statement undermines the manner in which the artefact showcases the author’s intersecting claims, “characterised by non-traditional narrative, fragmentation, connotative, rather than denotative values, and polysemic messages, poetry lends itself to a multiplicity of screen renditions”; “The production of Butterfly […] does not merely adapt a pre-existing poetic text but attempts to formulate a unique poetic cinematic language”.

On this basis, together with my observations within the review, I suggest minor revisions to the research statement. 

PEER REVIEW 2 

This submission offers insights into the developing field of poetry film, contributing to understanding this hybrid art form. The work is particularly relevant in three key areas:

1. It illuminates the complex interplay between artistic elements within poetry film production, especially how hierarchical relationships appear during the creative process.

2. It documents the methodological implications of simultaneously occupying roles as festival founder/director and filmmaker, revealing insights accessible only through this dual position.

3. It provides a case study of how commissioned creative work negotiates between institutional expectations and artistic discovery.

The author's dual role bridges creative practice and curatorial vision, offering a perspective on poetry film as a dynamic medium where conventions about the primacy of poetic text can be challenged through collaboration. While initially framed around place-making, the submission's significant contribution arises from how place integrates within a broader set of artistic negotiations.

The submission partially fulfils its potential but presents opportunities for deeper exploration. The research statement frames itself around: "How to make a place-based poetry film that showcases both the city and the university community?" While the author shows how place was constructed through local creatives and Wellington locations, the statement explores territories that merit further examination.

The place-based focus appears overshadowed by more significant discoveries about poetry film as a medium and the interplay of artistic elements. The author's position as festival founder/director and filmmaker creates a rich context for insights beyond place-making. The most compelling aspects surface when discussing how poetic text became secondary to music and choreography.

The submission would better realise its potential by reframing the research question to acknowledge how dual roles informed creative decisions. A more effective question might explore: "How does occupying dual roles inform creative decisions when producing a commissioned poetry film, and what emerges about hierarchical relationships between elements that challenge conventional understandings of poetry film?"

Additionally, deeper reflection on specific artistic choices and methodological implications would strengthen the research statement. The insights about music ultimately dominating the poetic text deserve further exploration, as this tension is a significant finding for understanding poetry film as an evolving art form.

The submission successfully exposes practice as research, though its strengths sometimes diverge from its stated focus:

• While framed around place-based filmmaking, the most significant insights stem from the practitioner's dual position as festival director and filmmaker.

• The work demonstrates innovation by documenting how relationships between artistic elements evolved unexpectedly. The discovery that music and choreography ultimately dominated over poetic text challenges conventional understandings of poetry film.

• The submission effectively contextualises the work within institutional frameworks and artistic traditions, showing how practice responds to and extends theoretical discourse.

• The reflective analysis illustrates the complex negotiations required when simultaneously creating work while establishing a festival platform for that same medium.

• The author's observation about how "the poetic impetus" shapes other elements while becoming secondary exposes meaningful tensions within interdisciplinary filmmaking.

The submission would benefit from explicitly recognising how research findings extend beyond the stated question. By reframing to acknowledge the methodological significance of the dual roles and unexpected hierarchical relationships that developed during production, the research contribution would be more clearly articulated.

Feedback/suggestions for changes 

Consider revising the title to reflect core research contributions. Your most significant insights relate to hierarchical relationships between artistic elements and your unique dual perspective. A title such as "Butterfly: Negotiating Artistic Hierarchies in Poetry Film Through Dual Creative and Curatorial Roles" might better signal your work's contribution.

• While you effectively outline poetry film's historical context, your own positioning within this tradition could be stronger. How does your approach build upon or diverge from earlier practitioners, particularly given your dual perspective?

• The tension between music/choreography and poetic text deserves highlighting as key research finding rather than merely a production challenge.

• Your position straddling both film production and festival establishment offers valuable methodological insights that could be more explicitly theorised. How did these roles inform each other throughout the creative process?

• The statement mentions the film's success "at festivals in New Zealand and overseas" without specifics. Include concrete examples to strengthen claims about the work's impact in different festival contexts.

• Expand your discussion of how the practical constraints of accommodating stakeholder expectations led to creative discoveries about poetry film itself. This negotiation process makes up a fundamental aspect of your findings.

RESPONSE TO PEER REVIEWS

I would like to give a huge thank you to both peer reviewers for taking the time to consider my work and for their thoughtful comments. I am extremely grateful for their responses. 

Originally, the main question of the research statement focused on the way in which Butterfly showcased and engaged with place. Reviewer 2, however, pointed out that the submission provided a useful “case study of how commissioned creative work negotiates between institutional expectations and artistic discovery”. Furthermore, they suggested that my unique position as festival and film director created “a rich context for insights” about the process of producing a commissioned poetry film. I feel this was an extremely crucial and helpful suggestion as I realised the most significant research insights of this project derived precisely from my dual role as filmmaker and curator. I decided, therefore, to both change the title and reframe my main research question to reflect the core contribution of the submission. 

The revised version of my research statement also clarifies my own positioning in relation to the history of poetry film. This history has been animated by debates between the practitioners who assign an aesthetic primacy to the poetic text over moving images and music, and those who regard poetry film as a unique media form that results from the complex interplay of different artistic elements. I consider myself as belonging to the second camp and, building upon suggestions from both reviewers, I explored in more depth the tension between music/choreography and poetic text that characterises Butterfly. Such creative discoveries, in turn, cannot be separated from the discussion of how the practical constraints of accommodating stakeholders’ expectations shaped the aesthetic quality of the film. Finally, I included more concrete examples of Butterfly’s success in different festival contexts to strengthen claims about the film’s impact. In the future (perhaps in a separate publication) I intend to examine in more depth the important role that the festival ecosystem plays in terms of the development of poetry film as a unique and distinct media form.

REVISED RESEARCH STATEMENT

This statement explores the process of producing Butterfly, a poetry film commissioned by Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) to celebrate the opening edition of the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (APFF) in 2023. APFF, which I founded and currently co-direct, is an event entirely devoted to the celebration and showcase of poetry film, a media form that combines poetry, moving images, sound and music. The festival, which features a poetry film competition, workshops, seminars, poetry readings and film retrospectives, was funded by VUW and Wellington UNESCO City of Film, and was supported by Lighthouse Cinema, a local exhibitor. One of the conditions of the funding provided by VUW was that the event would contribute to the university’s strategic plan by both showcasing the skills of staff and students across its creative fields and leveraging VUW’s location in Wellington as the creative capital of the country. In order to achieve this goal, I proposed to deploy part of the funding provided by the university to produce a poetry film that would both represent the main sponsor of the festival, VUW, and showcase Wellington as the creative capital of New Zealand. Butterfly was produced by a number of staff (including myself as director), students and alumni of VUW and was screened, out of competition, at the opening session of the first edition of APFF which took place on 2-3 November 2023. Following APFF, Butterfly was screened and nominated for awards at ten other festivals both in New Zealand and overseas, including top international poetry film competitions such as Cinestesya (Portugal) and O’Bheal (Ireland). Referring to the film, the curators of the Birmingham International Art Film Festival stated: “this poetic film is a stunning exploration of the intricate relationship between art, beauty and the concept of death […] The interplay of dance and visual artistry creates a mesmerizing experience, inviting viewers to reflect on the transient nature of life and the enduring power of creativity”.  

The main challenge I faced during the making of Butterfly was the need to effectively meet the expectations of the two main stakeholders which supported APFF, VUW and Wellington UNESCO City of Film. This paper explores the following research question, which relates to the challenge mentioned above: how does occupying the dual role of filmmaker and festival curator inform creative decisions when producing a commissioned poetry film? In the remainder of this research statement, I will first define the notion of poetry film and then discuss how I negotiated my double role as both filmmaker and festival director. Particular attention will be devoted to the way in which the film approached the representation of place, specifically the city and the university community, as this was an important aspect of stakeholders’ expectations. The making of the film also led to unexpected discoveries about the interplay between artistic elements (specifically the poetic text, music and mise-en-scène). This piece will, therefore, conclude with a brief overview of the new insights my collaborators and I gained about the hierarchical relationships between artistic elements during the creative process.  

There is no consensus in the academic world around the definition of poetry film. In the most comprehensive academic work on this topic, Sarah Tremlett’s The Poetics of Poetry Films (2021), the author argues that since ancient times poetry has naturally intersected with other media such as music, singing and theatrical performance. Tremlett traces the origins of contemporary poetry film back to the artistic avantgarde movements of the twentieth century, in particular Italian futurism, which theorised the convergence between poetry and screen media (Marinetti et al. 1970). Such convergence was also quite apparent in other avantgarde movements of the first half of the twentieth century, for example the work of surrealist filmmaker, Man Ray. In the post-war era the relationship between film and poetry has often found its most prominent manifestations within the context of experimental cinema. For example, acclaimed experimental filmmaker Maya Deren (1963) frequently made parallels between poetry and film (1963). Similarly, in the 1970s Canadian experimental filmmaker Tony Konyves explored the convergence between screen media and poetry both in his creative practice and his theoretical work, which culminated in the publication of his Manifesto of Video Poetry (2011). In the twenty-first century the emergence of digital technology led to the proliferation of poetry film-making while social media provided unprecedented opportunities for circulation and distribution. Although digital technology and social media impacted all screen media, it could be argued that they had a particularly strong influence on the evolution of poetry film. Due to its nature characterised by non-traditional narrative, fragmentation, connotative rather than denotative values, and polysemic messages, poetry lends itself to a multiplicity of screen renditions which can be realised through different budgets, technical competencies and modes of film-making including live-action, 3D and 2D animation, documentary approaches and so on. The experience of curating APFF has demonstrated that poetry film is an accessible media form, which due to its nature can be effectively tackled by both experienced and emerging film-makers with vastly different budgets and skills. 

One of the challenges I had to face as the founder of APFF concerned the lack of universally accepted definitions of poetry film, as a number of scholars and practitioners have often used this term to refer to slightly different media forms. Similarly, notions such as poetry film, video poetry and film poem are often used interchangeably. In her book Tremlett defines poetry film as “a genre of short film, usually combining the three main elements of the poem as: verbal message – voice-over or on-screen narration – or subtitles […]; the moving film image (and diegetic sounds); and additional nondiegetic sounds/ music.” (2021: xxi). It is the complex interweaving of these elements that give poetry films their uniquely associative character. Tremlett distinguishes the poetry film from the film poem which abjures verbal language for experimental cinematic language and depends on its audio- visual rhythms and tonal qualities to create aesthetic effects. The line between poetry film and film poem is very blurred and for the purposes of the APFF call for submission we defined poetry film as any screen production that engages with poetry and poetic language understood in broader terms. The main formal restriction featured in the call for submissions of the festival was the maximum length of the films which was set at 10 minutes to both facilitate the programming process and guarantee the inclusion of a variety of aesthetic approaches. 

Despite their vastly different aesthetic approaches, poetry film practitioners can be roughly divided into two groups: those who assign an aesthetic supremacy to the poetic text (i.e. the poem comes ‘first’ and the film is a mere adaptation of the original poetic text) and those who do not (Tremlett 2021). The production of Butterfly reflected my own understanding of and belief in poetry film as a media form that does not merely adapt a pre-existing poetic text but attempts to develop a unique poetic cinematic language. Such a creative approach, in turn, was motivated by my desire to position APFF first and foremost as a film festival rather than a literary, poetry event. Another major creative goal informed by my dual role as filmmaker and festival director, was the deployment and construction of a meaningful sense of place in the film. The authenticity of place in Butterfly was guaranteed by the selection of cast, crew and locations. All the people involved in the production of Butterfly were staff, students or alumni of VUW. In the initial stages of the project, I approached two established poets belonging to the VUW community, Prof. Marco Sonzogni and Dr. James Ackhurst. Marco was responsible for developing the loose narrative structure of the film. More specifically, the brief (showcasing Wellington as a creative capital) influenced Marco’s decision to focus on a dancer as a representative of the local creative community. The poem, however, was also loosely inspired by a true story relayed to Marco by one of his students: following the death of her grandfather, in fact, the student discovered that, unbeknownst to his family, the grandfather had produced a series of drawings. The student granted Marco permission to use this story as the premise for his poem, which takes the form of an imaginary dialogue between the grandfather and the grandmother about the meaning of art, beauty and perfection. James Ackhurst complemented Marco’s text by producing a poem which describes the granddaughter’s dancing. Since the poetic text revolved around a dancer, I decided the film should feature a number of dancing sequences. In turn, that led to the need to choreograph such sequences and produce an original musical score. The following step in the production process was, therefore, the creation of an original score composed by William Philipson, a VUW alumnus and lead composer of Shortland Street, New Zealand’s longest running soap opera. The music, which was inspired by the poetic texts, was performed by both William and Yury Gezentsvey (former first violinist of the New Zealand Symphonic Orchestra) and provided the basis for the choreography which was created by VUW alumna, Claudia Puti Holmstead-Morris. The titular role of Butterfly was played by Elora Battah, a VUW student at the time, while most of the other roles were filled by colleagues from the film and theatre department. 

The film was shot at VUW, Toi Whakaari (New Zealand Drama School) and other iconic Wellington locations including Te Ahumarangi Hill, which offers commanding views of the city centre, Princess Bay in the south coast, and the city’s CBD. In Butterfly, the Wellington locations are not a mere scenic background to the action but rather fulfil a specific aesthetic purpose as they are deployed to signify different stages in Butterfly’s life. For example, while Te Ahumarangi Hill and Princess Bay signify the exhilarating power of dancing, the gritty alleyways of Wellington’s CBD mark the transition to a darker moment in Butterfly’s life. I believe Butterfly was grounded in a strong sense of place both through the deployment of local creatives and through the use of distinctive and recognizable locations, which play a meaningful aesthetic purpose within the film. Butterfly successfully met the expectations of the stakeholders who invested in the project and achieved success at festivals both in New Zealand and overseas. 

Beyond the issue of place, the making of Butterfly provided a number of other useful insights about the nature of poetry film. In Butterfly, the poetic text informed the musical score, which, in turn, became the dominant aesthetic element of the film. The score provided the foundation for the choreography and once this was locked, all the other aspects of film form (i.e. acting, camera movements and editing) revolved around the music. In many ways the musical score limited my creative freedom as it became quite challenging to insert the original poetic text through the voice-over without breaking the rhythm and flow of the music. Although poetry was at the core of the film’s original aesthetic project, ultimately the poems, rendered through the voice-over, became a secondary element in Butterfly, as I was forced to condense or leave out significant parts of the original text. The making of Butterfly highlighted that the poetic impetus of the original poem can shape quite heavily other elements of film form (in this case music and choreography) at the pre-production stage, thus blurring and complicating the boundaries between categories such as poetry film, film poem and dance film. More importantly, the creative process brought to the fore the existence of a hierarchy of aesthetic elements as part of which music and dance choreography acquired a more dominant role over both the poetic voice-over and the original text. At the practical level, such aesthetic hierarchy made it harder to foreground the work of the two university-based poets. The overall result, however, was more in line with my own approach to poetry film as a medium that is not subservient to the pre-existing poetic text but is rather a unique and distinct language resulting from the complex interplay of different artistic elements. The analysis of the creative process demonstrates that the practical constraints of accommodating stakeholders’ expectations can lead to surprising and unexpected outcomes including the discovery of a new hierarchy of aesthetic elements, which is informed, but not dominated by the poetic text. Although such hierarchy created further creative constraints, it ultimately reinforced my own belief that poetry film is a distinct and unique media form.    

REFERENCES 

Deren, Maya, et al. 1963. “Poetry and the Film: A Symposium”. Film Culture, 29: 55-63.

Konyves, Tony, 2011. “Videopoetry: A Manifesto”. Critical Inquiry (Online Journal/Blog). February 2025. https://critinq.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/videopoetry-a-manifesto-by-tom-konyves/ 

Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso et al. 1970. “The Futurist Cinema 1916”, In Futurist Manifestos, edited by Umbro Apollonio, 207-218. New York: Viking Press.

Tremlett, Sarah, 2021. The Poetics of Poetry Film: Film Poetry, Videopoetry, Lyric Voice, Reflection. Bristol: Intellect.