So at the moment I'm very busy sending
A Poem for Lovers to as
many film festivals as I possibly can in the hope that maybe a few of
them might fancy screening my charming little short for the general
public. When you get ready to send a film to a film festival there are
all sorts of forms that you have to fill in in order for the festival to
consider your submission.
One thing you are often requested to write is something called a 'Director's Statement', which is essentially a short statement outlining what the Director hoped to achieve and what the rationale for the project was that he/she eventually created. I recently wrote one for
A Poem for Lovers and I thought it would be a nice little insight for my loyal readers to see what was going through my mind when I first thought of making the film :) So here it is, enjoy! And please let me know what you think in the comments:
A Poem for Lovers will always be significant for me, as it is
really my first attempt at writing and directing a short film. I spent many months carefully
considering the nature and subject matter of Poem, highly conscious of the fact that ‘firsts’ do matter and that
it could play a very important part in defining myself as a filmmaker and
showing any audience I might build what sort of films I may end up creating in
the future.
As such I was not in
any way disappointed by my first directorial endeavour. I was able to exactly capture the mood
and tone of what I wanted to put on screen. This was made especially possible through the wonderful
performances of Ian Hencher and Sophie Grace-Hill; the atmospheric and
enchanting score of Shamoon Khatri; and the extraordinary and exciting cinematography
of Kai K. Krause. I was able to
use all of these elements to create a dark, brooding, beautiful but macabre
world of thoughtfulness, melancholy, and psychological pain.
When writing the
script for Poem my aims were
essentially two-fold. The first of
these aims was to explore the theme of jealousy and examine its impact upon the
mind and upon an individual’s behaviour.
One of the things that fascinates me the most about the nature of jealousy
as an emotion is how often it is unjustifiably invoked by those who indulge in
it, and how its emotional inducement is often the cause of uncontrolled excess
in the form of love or, more often than not, possessiveness. In Poem
it is deliberately unclear as to whether Kate is guilty of sharing her
emotions with someone else besides Adrian, but this fact is irrelevant as, like
Othello before him, it is ultimately his own imaginings that precipitate his
struggle and ultimate downfall.
The second aim I had
for Poem was to explore the effect
that memories can have on us and the various ways in which they can be
unearthed. The power of words, and
their role in exciting specific memories, is also an idea that the film explores. Words, as well as images, have always
fascinated me, and since writing and literature had played such an important
part in my life leading up to the creation of my first film, I was very keen to
find a way of paying homage to the art form when constructing Adrian’s story.
I am incredibly proud
of what my team and I achieved when we made A
Poem for Lovers. It marks the
beginning of my journey as a filmmaker, and makes a number of statements that I
want people to listen to and take on board. My only hope is that people enjoy watching A Poem for Lovers as much as I enjoyed
making it.
