Kaitlyn Greene Revisions and Citations

[0:00] Screen capture of video editing software.

Hi. So, today I’m going to take you through how I made my e-poetry video. Um, I chose a poem by Mary Oliver called “Where Does the Dance Begin and Where Does it End?” and I actually chose this poem because Mary Oliver’s one of my friend’s favorite authors, and he recommended her and her poetry, and I read some of it and really liked it. She writes a lot about nature, and I really enjoy, like, being outside, and like trees and plants and stuff, so I really like this poem. And, also, I started a dance company this semester, so I thought it was really cool that it talked about dance, too. There’s some, like, metaphors and things where--some figurative language where she compares nature to a dance, so I thought it was really cool; it really stuck out to me. Anyway, yeah, I--this is my revision of my e-poem that we’re looking at, and I actually did change much from my first one because I was really happy with my original product, so I ended up going back in after I did my original one and just altering the volume in places because the song I used got really loud at one point [laughs] so I just lowered that. I’m just gonna walk you through some of the clips I used and explain why I picked them.
	So, at the beginning I chose this, like, sunrise, and I’ll show it to you real quick.

[1:23] Plays clip of sun rising.

This is just a clip I found on the internet. I looked up some, uh, clips of just, like, earth videos. I just look up like, HD quality earth videos of like nature and stuff, and I liked this one because it looked like The Lion King [laughs]. Um, so, I used that to open it up, then we have the title sequence right here.

[1:42] Clip of a rock formation is shown.

So yeah, this is all just, like, HD footage of like the planet and I just picked some really cool clips. I tried to show a lot of different scenery. So, like, here we have a waterfall, um, I think we’re about to have some dolphins. I thought it was really cool because, like, right here, um, is some of the imagery involving dance [text on screen] and it looks like they’re doing a little dance right there, so [laughs] I thought that was really cute. 

[2:16] Clip of lightning flashing in the sky plays.

Here, I thought this was really cool, this whole part, um. The language of the poem made it pretty easy to pick clips. Like for this one I obviously used lightning, and for the next one it’s a pillar of gold for a tree, and I found this, like, GoPro video of a tree on fire. I thought it was really cool when it’s in slow motion, so it’s pretty awesome. And, like, the music’s building in the background. 

[2:46] Video of tall trees plays/

Um, so yeah, here’s, like, a forest. This is all--I found all this on YouTube, all these earth videos. Um, I like this one.

[2:54] Clip of cattails in a field.

Um, the wind turning in circles, I actually decided to make the words [on-screen] turn in circles--thought that was fun. 

[3:02] Clip of deer in a pond.

This next part--this is actually a different video--this is a Vine I found on tumblr. Um, thought it was really beautiful. Um, I like deer a lot. I like a lot of foresty animals and stuff, so this is a pretty personal video for me because just the nature in general was, like, something that stuck out to me personally. But, um, this is like a particular video I had found and thought was really beautiful, and like, posted it on my tumblr, so I decided--I thought of it when I was reading this poem, and I decided to go back and use it for this project. 

[3:31] Clip of kids playing soccer in a field plays.

I really like this one. This is some kids playing soccer. Um, I think the location was somewhere in Africa. Um, I wanted to use a lot of examples from, like, different places around the world again, and I think the music went really well with that part because I picked a song that’s kind of, like, world music. Like, it was like an Asian-African fusion tune off of like YouTube. 

[3:56] Clip of Machu Pichu plays.

This is of Machu Pichu I think. It was, like, some HD earth video I found.

[4:02] Clip of mountains plays.

And then this part, okay, this part is really cool and has a really personal connection for me. First of all, I love the mountains, and second of all, I don’t know why, but, when I read the line, ‘the Sufi poet whirled,’ I pictured Tom Hanks from Cloud Atlas, which is my favorite book, and also a pretty good movie--not nearly as good as the book...actually pretty disappointing compared to the book--but, that is Tom Hanks [on-screen] in the background. Or, like, overlayed over the mountains gazing into the distance [laughs]. And, so yeah, I used that because that was like, a really--that’s what came to mind, and that’s, like, one of my personal favorite pieces of literature. Um, let’s see. This next part, I was really proud of this sequence; I thought it was really cool. For this part right here in the poem almost, whenever I read it, I thought it like, changed pace a little bit. Um, it goes from, like, this kind of gentle, like, description to like--it says ‘to the center of everything.’ And that was, like, a really big line to me. 

[5:03] Clip of an explosion in space.

So, I have this like, cosmic explosion, and it gets faster paced right here. Um, it talks about the seed, the egg, the idea, and those are all, like, things to me that symbolize a beginning of something, so I, you know, like put footage of those. And I--actually recorded really long--like, on my screen I recorded really long videos and then sped them up so they would look like a time lapse, just because I thought that, I don’t know, I thought that was really fitting of that part because, like, the pacing of the poem seems like, different there when you read it, um, on a page. But yeah, I thought that was--I really like that part.

[5:42] Clip of hands touching.

Then right here we have hands touching. Um, and it’s pretty literal [laughs]. It talks about ‘beautiful as a thumb, curved and touching the finger tenderly,’ and that was just footage I found off of YouTube.

[5:58] Clip of an ocean wave.

This next part is a wave. Um, ‘oh jug of breath,’ I thought that right there--like, the cloud of waves looked kind of like a breath. I don’t know [laughs]. And then, this is actually one of my favorite clips. Um, ‘in the garden of dust.’

[6:14] Clip of sand dunes from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

This is of Jakku from the last Star Wars movie that just came out, and if you look right here to the right of the screen [points to it with the mouse] I believe that is actually a crashed X-Wing Fighter. Or, like, another space ship. So, you can kind of tell. But, yeah, that’s one of my favorite movies--big Star Wars fan. And then we have the fade out here at the end. But, yeah, I had a lot of fun making this video. Um, really enjoyed this poem. When I read it, it was kind of a no-brainer that I wanted to do this one. Um, because I read some of her other ones and I just really liked the, the playfulness of the language--talking about the dance and comparing that to nature--I just thought that was really cool. And I actually considered--you can see here on the left, um, I have some footage of dancers I was going to overlay on top, but I couldn’t get it to ever, like, look right. I tried in, like, some of my opening scenes, then ended up just kind of, like, scrapping the idea. So, anyway, yeah, that’s my poem, and that’s pretty much all I have to show I think [laughs]. I think that’s pretty much it. Alright, thanks.