Emily Shepherd Initial Walkthrough

[0:00] Scene of class website, and later scrolling through the website

Hi everyone, this is a walkthrough of my E-Poem which is based on the poem "They shut me up in Prose" by Emily Dickinson. I first chose to write about this poem in my poetry essay because I was named after Emily Dickinson and I've always wanted to learn more about her. I found this particular poem by looking at my classmates' posts of their favorite poems, and this one stood out to me because of its imagery.

[0:27] Website of poem “They shut me up in Prose--” appears

I divided the poem into three parts with three different themes according to the three different stanzas. 

[0:34] Video editing software that shows e-poem playing

For my E-Poem, I chose to have a simple style that is uplifting and hopefully inspiring to its viewers. Because of its simplicity, a lot of my focus on editing the video was on timing and the connection between the song, the visuals, and the meaning of the poem itself. 

[0:52] Scene of bird flying in slow motion

The first part features a trapped bird, and goes along with the meaning of the poem about being "shut up in prose."

At first, I felt like my video was a bit slow at times. But then I thought... well, why does it have to be fast? This is the direction that mainstream media is taking us, but I realized that I did not have to follow this trend.

In this scene as the song lyrics shift focus to the individual, I zoom in on the bird. The focus on this bird then transitions into the swarm of birds as you’ll see. 

[1:32] Transition as camera zooms on bird and then changes scenes to swarm of birds flying in the sky

This represents the individual comprising part of the collective, and the wider women's rights movement that Emily Dickinson's poetry helped spark.

The second part features a swarm of birds flying through the sky in unison, which foreshadows the ultimate liberation of the speaker and comments on the irony of something inherently free being trapped. 

The birds swarm in circles just like how in the poem the speaker's brain goes round. 

As you’re about to see there’s a video of a bird taking flight that appears while the birds clear a space in their swarm. I was able to integrate this video by lowering the opacity of the bird taking flight and also adding a fade in and out transition.

[2:22] Music fades out and then in with video of bird taking flight

The taking off part of the flight corresponds to the change in the music as well.

Mess with the opacity

Another element of the video that's meaningful is that I was able to incorporate a picture that my mom took while I was doing this project of the sunset and a large bird flying in the center. I tried to make the entrance and exit of this image fade in and out in a way that corresponds with the music.

[2:52] Still image of bird flying with sunset background

I think my most successful transition is towards the end of the video when the screen fades to black as the music fades out, and then as the music fades back in, the song also increases in intensity, ending in a line of poem appearing right as the words to the song come in, as you’re about to see. So try to pay attention to the music and what’s happening on the screen.

[3:38] Video of drone flying over grassy hills

The third part uses imagery of a bird's eye view of a field to represent the feeling of liberation that accompanies the final stanza of the poem. To me, this is the most uplifting part of the video, and if you listen to the lyrics, they match what happens on the screen as well as what happens in the poem.

Now I'd like to share some of the more conceptual takeaways that I got from this project. One is that I've learned that using different modes of expression to analyze something can really help shed light on its meaning. This is something I want to utilize as a teacher.

[4:28] Black screen with credits

I also felt inspired to create art for almost the first time ever. I found myself wanting to edit and refine my project on a daily basis because I was inspired by it and found the work meaningful.

It is also satisfying to know that this is a draft and that this can be a project that can continually evolve.

Thanks so much for watching!

[4:55] Video ends