This article is part of a series focused on how artificial intelligence is being used as a tool for writing for the screen and stage as well as how it is depicted on screen and stage, commissioned as part of MyWorld, a UKRI-funded project that explores the future of creative technology innovation by pioneering new ideas, products and processes in the West of England.

Photo by Jack Barton on Unsplash

Artificial intelligence is fast becoming the hot technology in film and television industry. Tech shows and university campuses are awash with case studies and demos of the power of AI to transform the way we produce visual media. However, the storm of controversy that engulfed Brady Corbet’s latest film, The Brutalist, suggests that not everyone  is ready for mainstreaming AI production. 

At the heart of the concerns – and the wider debate on AI – lies the revelation that AI played a significant role in the movie’s post-production process, specifically in enhancing the Hungarian dialogue and creating architectural drawings. This use of AI has ignited passionate discussions and raised questions about the boundaries of artistic creation and technological intervention. 

AI applications in The Brutalist 

The film, starring Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, has garnered critical acclaim for its powerful performances and striking aesthetic. However, the disclosure of AI involvement has cast a shadow over its achievements, raising questions about the authenticity of the actors’ performances and the integrity of the film’s artistic vision.  Traditionally, perfecting an accent for a role involves months of intensive dialect coaching and multiple rounds of Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR). However, The Brutalist took a different approach, employing Respeecher, a voice conversion technology, to make targeted adjustments to the actors’ pronunciations. Rather than re-recording entire performances, the AI system allowed for precise, letter-by-letter modifications to vowel sounds, blending the actors’ performances with authentic Hungarian speech patterns. This method represents a significant departure from conventional post-production techniques. It allowed for rapid, cost-effective adjustments that would have been too expensive or time-consuming using traditional methods, especially given the film’s modest $10 million budget. 

Furthermore, when developing the film’s Brutalist architectural designs, the production team turned to Midjourney, an AI image generation tool, to create concept art. Few AI-generated visuals made it into the film; instead, the images served as a reference for human artists, who refined and expanded these concepts to create the final designs. However, some critics still  oppose the use of AI as a creative starting point. 

The real controversy surrounding The Brutalist is less about AI itself and more about the timing of its disclosure. Unlike other high-profile projects, such as The Mandaloria,which used  Respeecher for Luke Skywalker’s voice, the AI enhancements in The Brutalist were revealed after the film’s release. This lack of transparency has led to the industry and audiences feeling duped rather than excited by what this technology can do.  This echoes similar controversies, such as the 2021 Roadrunner documentary scandal, where AI was used to recreate Anthony Bourdain’s voice without explicit disclosure. 

AI in Film and Television Production 

In response to the backlash, the film’s creative team has defended their use of AI, framing it as an augmentation rather than a replacement of human effort. Director Brady Corbet likened the edits to “removing a microphone boom in Photoshop“, suggesting that such post-production tweaks are commonplace – an idea that may well have concerned audiences further. Producer Stan Brooks drew parallels to long-standing industry practices, stating, “We’ve done tiny voice enhancements since the ’80s“.  

While these rebuttals might defend this single production, the controversy surrounding The Brutalist has broader implications for the film and television industries. AI is fast being presented as a natural evolution of existing post-production techniques rather than a radical departure from established norms. However, this position becomes problematic in light of recent labour disputes and growing concerns about AI’s role in creative fields.  

The integration of AI into Hollywood has already sparked a seismic shift in labour relations, reshaping power dynamics between studios and creatives while raising existential questions about the industry’s future workforce. Recent disputes reveal a sector grappling with technological disruption that threatens to outpace existing safeguards. Whilst 72% of studios state that they actively deploy generative AI tools, creative professionals are voicing mounting concerns. Voice actors fear algorithmic voice cloning could erase speciality work, whilst visual effects (VFX) artists’ unions note that AI threatens compositing roles. Writers, for their part, have won contractual assurances that AI cannot replace human authorship. 

The 2023 Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and The Writers Guild of America (WGA)  strikes established critical AI protections through landmark agreements. These hard-won clauses now face stress tests in emerging conflicts, such as the 2024 video game actors’ strike against Activision and Disney, where performers demand enforceable protections against AI voice cloning. Meanwhile, the Animation Guild battles studios over AI’s encroachment into 3D modelling and character design – fields where 30% of jobs could vanish by 2026, according to CVL Economics

The use of AI in creative processes may also complicate copyright laws and ownership rights across the creative industries. The UK Government is presently consulting on AI and copyright with a view to bringing in legislation that supports the creative industries without stifling the use of AI tools. Questions, though, still abound: Who owns an AI-enhanced performance? How do we credit AI contributions to a film? These unknowns will lead to calls for new transparency standards and potentially mandatory disclosure of AI use in film and television production.  

Creativity with AI? 

Those in favour of AI as a legitimate production tool argue that it expands creative possibilities, allowing film and television makers to achieve effects and results that were previously impossible or prohibitively expensive. They also point to the potential for AI to democratise filmmaking by giving independent creators access to high-quality effects. 

On the other hand, critics worry about the loss of the human touch. There are concerns that AI might dilute the uniquely human elements of the craft and raise questions about the authenticity of AI-enhanced performances. Some critics fear that increasing reliance on AI could lead to a reduction in human creativity and skill development in general. 

Traditionally, cinema has been a collaborative art form involving actors, directors, cinematographers, and craftspeople. AI introduces a new ‘collaborator’ whose contributions are less tangible and more difficult to define. This technological intervention challenges traditional roles within the process. For actors, the question is whether AI enhancement diminishes the value of their performance or if it is simply an extension of post-production techniques. For The Brutalist, the use of AI in generating architectural concepts challenges the role of production designers, while its involvement in dialogue refinement blurs the line between editing and performance alteration. 

 In other areas, AI is used to the joy of audiences. The Mandalorian has been widely praised for its work with Respeecher.  Audiences marvel at expansive alien landscapes and endless skies that are only possible through AI-enhanced production processes; and the complex, real-time overlays in sports coverage, made possible by AI, allow graphics to keep up with live action. Virtual Production, a longstanding but increasingly important aspect of film and television can only reach its potential by using AI to support it. 

 As AI continues to advance, the film and television industry must grapple with fundamental questions about the nature of creativity and artistic expression. The Brutalist may be a turning point, forcing the industry to establish new guidelines. We may see the emergence of categories that recognise AI-enhanced creativity as a distinct art form. Viewers might develop a more nuanced understanding of AI’s role in production and industry bodies may need to establish clear guidelines for AI disclosure. 

What does the Future Hold? 

 The capabilities of AI are opening creative avenues but also raising significant ethical concerns. We may see the rise of fully AI-generated performers, raising questions about the nature of stardom and the value of human performance. Films could potentially adjust their storylines based on audience reactions or preferences, creating a more interactive but no longer shared cinematic experience. In the pre-production phase, AI tools could evaluate screenplays for marketability, pacing, and narrative structure, potentially streamlining the often-arduous process of script development, but this could lead to a flattening of the creative landscape with few ‘new’ ideas being brought to market. During production, we might see the emergence of real-time visual effects systems, allowing directors to visualise complex effects instantly on set. This could significantly reduce post-production time and costs while enabling more creative decision-making during filming. However, these methods and uses raise concerns about the integrity of artistic vision and the potential for manipulative storytelling techniques. 

From universities to Hollywood, AI is changing the production process. Image: University of Westminster

The essence of cinema and television is human storytelling, and the challenge is to maintain the emotional authenticity that connects audiences to films. Yuval Noah Harari has suggested that AI could write better songs by mapping individual minds and creating tailored experiences. However, musician Nick Cave argues that great songs evoke a sense of awe, which stems from human limitations and the audacity to transcend them. AI might generate technically ‘perfect’ songs, but it lacks the nerve to create truly great ones! The same may be true of stories for film and television.  

Whichever side of the debate we take, directors and writers will need to adapt their skills to ‘direct’ AI tools, leading to new roles in human-AI creative partnerships. The Brutalist may well be remembered as an early harbinger of this new era, where the boundaries between human and artificial creativity become increasingly blurred. 

As the film and television industries embrace these technologies, we must remain vigilant about the ethical implications of AI while   exploring their potential to expand the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. The future of the screen industries may become a collaborative dance between human imagination and artificial intelligence, creating experiences that we can scarcely imagine today.

This article is one of a series commissioned as part of MyWorld, a UKRI-funded project that explores the future of creative technology innovation by pioneering new ideas, products and processes in the West of England. 

In 2021, I attended the 10 Days on the Island festival in lutruwita/Tasmania as part of a research project exploring the social impact of the creative arts in Regional Australia. On my second day at the festival, I went to a small workshop Reaching Global Audiences with Local Storytelling led by Catherine Pettman from Rummin Productions and Rebecca Thompson. After an hour, it was clear that these two filmmakers were creating, producing and sharing some of the most interesting and community-led stories I had seen in a very long time. Their approach to respecting the communities and individuals they are collaborating with is centred on meeting participants where they are: emotionally, creatively and physically. This was challenged in 2020, and their extraordinary film There is No ‘I’ in Island demonstrates their innovative solution to enforced isolation. This short documentary series weaves the fears, dreams, reflections, and songs of the island community of lutruwita/Tasmania into a fantastical, animated landscape. Every voice heard in the series was self-recorded in May 2020, during Tasmania’s COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, and reflects in a personal way on the experience. Catherine Pettman reflects below on the process of collaborative storytelling and its potential to create change.

Tell us a bit about who you are and how you came to be working in film and documentary filmmaking?

In the southeast of lutruwita/Tasmania there’s a unique meeting of two saltwater bays, divided by a narrow isthmus with high coastal mountains that dip their wooded toes into the icy Southern waters. It was a remote place to grow up and our family activities were completely dictated by the climate and what needed to be caught or grown for the dinner table. I played in the ocean, and on the ocean. I walked through the temperate rainforest to find the waterfalls. Mostly, I rode for hours on my single speed bike, travelling here and there, exploring every nook and cranny. They were fearless years full of freedom and adventure. teralina/Eaglehawk Neck was a magical environment, which hosted a complement of curious visitors and unique local characters full of news of their adventures out there in the wilds. Listening to these storytellers, particularly my parents, was a wonderful way to spend the time. Perhaps this is where my love of story began.

I left home in my late teens. Not an unusual occurrence as we tend to leave the Island early on. It’s a migration really. For me, it was to gain higher education in the Dramatic Arts and beyond, and traveling and exploring other cultures. Journeying through the Northern Territory and then living and working with the Yolngu community in NE Arnhem Land had a huge impact on my life, and for which I will always be grateful. Filmmaking started on the other side of the camera as through my performance studies I saw myself as an actor and theatre maker. Eventually, my heart brought me home to Tasmania where I began crewing on commercial productions, gaining experience through a variety of roles, and eventually began to produce my own content for the screen. I’ve particularly loved documenting stories of exemplary people sharing their life’s passion. Oftentimes, there are themes that relate to the wicked issues that we face as a society. Funnily enough, there’s a collective interest in making and sharing these kinds of stories that build community capacity, and quite a few of my shorter documentaries have resonated in places far removed from our little island at the bottom of the world. 

How would you describe your approach to finding the stories you want to tell?

I have a strong suspicion that stories find me. At least it often feels that way. I hear or read about something intriguing, or a colleague shares an experience or an idea, and, suddenly, we’ve been talking for an hour together, building on what’s fascinating or why it’s compelling and how badly we need to capture it, and share it with others. If activities within the story are time critical then there’s extra pressure to try and solve the puzzle of how to develop the idea, how to finance the production, and how to find a pathway to an audience. That was certainly the case with There Is No ‘I’ In Island. It was developed in response to our COVID-19 lockdown and the reality of not having capacity to film live interviews. Hence, the idea to ask participants to self-record their responses was born. 

All of a sudden, we found ourselves pouring over hours of intimate stories, which we collated into story threads for our five episodes. It was a humbling experience, opening each recording full of stories gifted to us during such a poignant moment in time. There are hours of stories I’d love to share but there’s not enough time to make them all into films. Although this creates tension, I also recognise it’s a privileged position to be in. Overall, the stories that rise to the surface are more often than not those that have a strong community of collaborators and supporters all the way along. There’s an authenticity within the story, the process and the community of storytellers, which eventually translates to an authentic film that hopefully connects with the intended audience. Authenticity is probably the most fundamental aspect in choosing the story I want to tell. Truth mirrored back through story has the power to challenge our values and beliefs and, just possibly, transform the way we see the world – perhaps even offering up a renewed perspective on how we can be better citizens within it. We can but try.

What innovations in the ways that community stories can be made and shared are most exciting for you?

The There Is No ‘I’ In Island series was a break away from the conventional, and I suppose we considered it innovative as it was new ground for us as creatives. Myself and co-creator Rebecca Thomson prompted experiential responses from the community by asking specific questions around a particular subject, and participants self-recorded their answers rather than having a filmmaker present to guide the narrative – quite an untraditional method. By doing this, the authority transferred across to the individual and already we can see the impact of community ownership of their ‘voices’ in the way There Is No ‘I’ In Island  has been embraced and joyously shared through physical space and online. The production most likely felt innovative as it occurred during a very uncertain time during lockdown when we were all unsure how production could continue. It became this very nimble and explorative way that we could keep producing content and share human experiences and stories from our own community, with community participation being at the core of the process. 

Everything about the project made perfect sense and the community responded in kind with openness and enthusiasm. We could sense that the community were feeling ‘seen’ and ‘heard’, which gave their stories even more weight as it was clear how valued they felt being involved. It was hugely exciting to develop from the ground up using this pool of natural, charming, exotic, and relatable characters who were completely anonymous to us, yet who also became extraordinarily familiar throughout our production process. 

As There Is No ‘I’ In Island was conceived during lockdown in May 2020, it was also designed so that we could pair five visual artists each with an experienced animator.

It was hugely satisfying to match these creative teams with an episode that best suited their tone and style, creating a rich and valuable opportunity to build their skills, push themselves creatively and to form new professional collaborations. This network of participants and creatives has resulted in a multi-faceted cross-section of community participants, artistic collaborators, supporters and viewers.  

Do you think stories can create change?

One of the most beautiful things about stories is they have the power to open us up to new perspectives. The question I tend to ponder is how exactly is the story creating change in a person? Is it conscious? Or are these archetypal themes resonating with our subconscious selves, shifting our deepest values and beliefs in a new direction? What happens when new concepts and ideas settle in and relax our learned perspectives and prejudices? Do stories somehow deliver intangible meanings that nurture us and provide sustenance for personal growth? Stories deliver such rich meaning to our lives, they connect us to higher ideals whilst, at the same time, they also connect us to our own hearts. 

Stories have the capacity to make us care deeply about the world and the wicked issues that we face in society. Stories help us understand how to tackle the challenges around us, they inspire us, and remind us we are not alone. Stories provide a pathway to express our emotions and our dreams, which is the perfect combination when you think about it. When stories create change in people, they become empowered to make change. A story that communicates a call to action is probably the most powerful tool in making change. We need to get active to see the changes we want beyond talking, listening and sharing as these activities aren’t enough by themselves. But they are a fantastic start to the conversation towards meaningful action.

Which are your favourite or most impactful projects and why?

Doing it Scared was one of the most beautiful projects I’ve produced, it was a deeply meaningful story featuring rock climbing legend Paul Pritchard and his attempt to finally conquer the ‘Totem Pole’, a “fearsome sea-stack”, which 18 years prior had almost cost Paul his life. Paul was one of the world’s leading climbers and mountaineers of the 1980s and 90s, renowned for his hard and extremely bold first ascents. In 1998, Paul was abseiling in to climb the Totem Pole in Southeast Tasmania when he dislodged a rock, which hit him on the head, causing a severe head injury that he was lucky to survive. The aftermath of the accident left him with hemiplegia, which means he has little feeling or movement in the right side of his body. Despite this disability, Paul continues to live a life filled with adventure. So much so that when Paul decided to return to the Totem pole to finish the climb and asked us to film this extraordinary attempt, we leapt at the chance to support his ambition and help document the final chapter of this remarkable story. 

The resulting edge-of-your-seat film is just 12 minutes in length. It has been seen all over the world in every major outdoor adventure festival, and still continues to screen in cities throughout Europe, China and the US. Paul has been invited to speak at many of these festivals and uses the film within his own presentations to large NFP and Governmental organisations, and within smaller classroom settings, sharing his story and demonstrating his physical and spiritual experience of life through leading practical activities with a goal of breaking down prejudice with empathy, education and inspiration. 

You can find There is No ‘I’ in Island here:

www.rummin.com

https://www.facebook.com/rumminproductions

https://www.facebook.com/TasmanianVoices

Warning: the following contains potentially crucial, but mostly lukewarm, spoilers for the film “Jupiter Ascending”. Consider yourself notified.

My first critical thought on viewing the latest Wachowski filmsprawl actually wasn’t one. And by stating this, I’m not intending any smartarse obscuration, though I am aware that even using that term “filmsprawl” could firmly place me in that very territory. Instead, my initial reflections about the film centred on how simultaneously expansive and reductionistic it appeared. The film seemed tailor-made to appeal to an audience well versed in contemporary game aesthetics, an audience to which interactive entertainment conventions are de rigueur.

My primary take on Jupiter Ascending differs distinctly (but not wildly) from other perspectives I’ve encountered – and by others I’m referencing peers and friends as opposed to goldstar reviewers, as I’ve made sure to read less than zero blurbs keen to theoretically carve up the movie into its non-gestalt parts. Most mentions I’ve encountered peg Jupiter Ascending as a clumsy but original (to use a cognitively-velcro-worthy-term) “hot mess” of a film.

Others view the movie as a type of wayward space opera, a CGI-fest of hodgepodge philosophy clunkily melded with awkward-but-gorgeously-Michael-Bay-like-derision-worthy-screencandy. When James Dominguez informed me (prior to watching said movie) that: “…apparently it’s terrible in a very entertaining way”, I believed him. When my Cinema-Going Companion (CGC) asked me (post-viewing) whether I would be keen to watch Jupiter Ascending again, I replied that yes, I would: he speedily said he would not (he had also indulged in brief microsleeps during one of the lengthy action sequences). CGC’s critique of the movie hinged on the fact he thought it was trying to do too much at once, and that he just couldn’t get excited about such overblown sequences – hence the microsleeps. I, on the other hand, did indeed find the film straight-up enjoyable.

The considerable reviewer vitriol surrounding the film’s release highlights the film’s skewing of traditional filmic conventions. Stock standard monomythic story requirements are employed in a traditional sense in the film, but these are somewhat counterbalanced by a fantastical emphasis on game-emulation aesthetics. In my view, action sequences like those found in contemporary movies like Jupiter Ascending directly emulate game mechanics that are relevant to a large chunk of contemporary viewers. Such invocation of interactive based mimicry (think: apps, games) transposed into a passive medium (film) isn’t new – think on the preponderance of game-to-film adaptations – but is becoming increasingly relevant in contemporary media.

In Jupiter Ascending, the nature of class privilege and the insidious nature of social stratification, otherness-classifying, socioeconomic determinism, the grab for immortality, consumerism/greed, industrialisation and the military-industrial-technological-complex in general are all plot-and-theme threaded. Want some heavy holistic allegory and steampunkish-laden visuals thrown into the mix? Done. How about some reincarnation amnesia and fantastical genetic cross-species warnings as well? You got it.

The fantastical elements in Jupiter Ascending present as bricolage. Such variables also act to illustrate just how such a movie might reshape established indicators of what makes a film great (or even watchable). Instead of free-falling into harsh reviewing mode, maybe audiences could instead learn that such fantastical elements are ripe for what I term “functional mapping”. Functional mapping describes the disjunctive process when prior cognitive associations are made elastic in order to overwrite previously hardbaked/templated cognitions. When Caine first shows off how his gravity-mod boots work, there’s the potential for a viewer to undergo a type of believability disconnect: a disturbance-twinge in the Willing-Suspense-of-Disbelief force, if you will (*cough*).

The boots and their functional aspects – such as Caine speeding off looking very much like he’s ghost-skating/rollerblading – seems jarring at first, as do his eventually reinstated wings as evidenced in the movie’s dénouement. This jarring comes from strong prior association-sets present in our canon heavy entertainment. When seeing a character perform actions that many audience members strongly associate with quantifiable behaviours, our belief might just waver: when asked to map new imaginings over such a prior-based associations, some viewers may find this incredibly difficult. When bees are used to replace a more standard take on ecological symbolism (think: the far more palatable convention of using bird or butterfly murmurations), many may think this absurd, as stretching believability boundaries a tad too far.

To those raised on cultural settings based off gamification and karma whoring, where positive (and vicarious) reinforcement sits easily alongside intense visual diets comprised of cinematics, machinima, supercuts and cutscenes interspersed with intense fps-action bursts, the Jupiter Ascending action sequences and computer generated graphic bombardment present as very normal. So too, does the requirement of functional mapping, where transmedia-based characterisation and Storyworld construction easily rewrite such mono-channelled associations.

In a typical Studio-backed movie, mainstream story structures allows for certain elements, including ye olde girl-meet-boy, boy-loses-girl, boy-regains-girl yawn to effect our Willing Suspension of Disbelief. When this structure is toyed with, or heavily modded in substantial ways, confused audiences can be left hypercritically picking at the result in an attempt to cobble together a meaning curve predicated heavily on the known, rather than making the cognitive leap to another (emergent) meaning-creation paradigm. And although I empathize with the urge to overanalyse in order to establish quality markers, this seems to be a somewhat futile exercise in today’s media platforms. Shouldn’t we instead alter canonistically-predicated criteria in order to establish relevancy/quality as directed by changing methods of entertainment creation?

An email exchange between Stevie Ronnie and Liam Owen reflecting on the making of Four Years from Now, Walking with My Daughter. An animation by Liam Owen inspired by Stevie Ronnie’s poem of the same name.

SR: So Liam, you’re not a big reader of poetry. What made you think about making an animation from my poem?

LO: That is certainly true, I am in fact not a great reader of anything. I struggle with words but have a love affair with imagery.

When I heard your poem I could automatically visualise each line, each moment, I was walking in the same place. This is not common with me but your poem inspired me, and as soon as you had finished reading it I knew I HAD to make it into a animation, I had to bring it to life.

Growing up together in the same wonderful place and meeting your beautiful first baby daughter who inspired you to write the poem in the first place of course helped.

I am interested to know what you thought when I first asked permission to turn it into an animation and how you thought the process was going to work?

SR: I was over the moon when you asked to work on the poem. I was pleased that it inspired you and that you wanted to animate it – knowing your style and work, I knew you’d do a great job. I wasn’t sure how much input you’d need from me but suspected that you’d just get on with it as there was already a connection there throughout mutual relationship with the setting of the poem. I expect I might have had to be more involved if it had been someone else. Collaboration is always different, in my experience and it’s impossible to know how things are going to pan out until you get started.

For me there was a real opportunity to add to my portfolio and to reach a wider audience with the work. Poetry doesn’t get far in the world (the readership is very small). It works well with short film though as poems tend to say a lot in a little space and the animation has reached a much wider audience than the poem ever will in book form. I’d say the Internet has a lot to do with the recent rise in popularity of video poetry. Short works well on the web and there’s a potentially massive audience out there, even for poetry!

Did it change the way you think about poetry at all? Less scary? Would you work with poems again?

LO: I think it’s about the accessibility of poetry that is key. I have never really gone looking for it before and like you said the readership is small so to have a friend who is heavily involved gave me the route in. To be honest I have not expanded upon this route but from reading and listening to your work and others you are associated with has defiantly changed my perception. Of course like with most arts it’s only some that create the spark, lots just go right over my head, but when someone writes something I can connect with, it can visually sing in my head, which is very exciting.

I think of poetry as like pure concentrated fruit juice where every intense drip of flavour is squeezed out so even though its short it’s still full of flavour. I suppose lots of words don’t always mean lots of detail? This short form of writing works really well with animated shorts for obvious reasons and as I am always looking out for great stories I really hope I can do more work with poets and writers in the future.

One of the areas that I felt I could have expanded on was the use of words and the timings and connections between these words and different lines. I feel like my animation is a very simple linear play on your words and I am sure you are doing more with the words than I realised.

Visualising these play with words is something that interests me for future collaborations, is there other areas within animation and moving imagery that you would like to explore?

SR: Aye, I’m definitely interested in working within the various forms of video poetry that are currently emerging (and growing in popularity). As well as the benefits of reaching a wider audience, the format has endless possibilities in terms of enhancing the poem.

I like your description of poetry as ‘pure concentrated fruit juice’. I think there’s a lot to that analogy that rings true for me in the way I think about writing poems. And you are right too about the detail coming from what is missing. I think the reader connects more strongly with a poem if they create the details in their own head. I have a poem called Mammy’s Dress that begins “There’s comfort in the fading of her dress / each picnic folded into each pelt / of rain that’s laundered it simple – / like infinity accepted as true.” Once, after I’d spoken it out loud, a member of the audience came up to me and said that his mother also owned this same dress. If you look over my words I don’t describe the dress at all. He’d invented it himself and therefore he owned the image. I’m convinced that this personal ownership of the image by the reader / listener / viewer is part of the reason that poetry can be so memorable and moving. Perhaps the skill is in deciding what to leave out.

Ambiguity is important in poetry – the same word can mean several different things. Often in a good poem, there’s a tension between the littoral interpretation of the words and their other possible meanings. This can create layers of meaning to a piece, adding depth and creating something which repays re-reading. Adding a visual element to the poem means that there’s another device that can add layers of meaning to the words. I’d like to play with this idea – how far can the visuals be pushed from the words without it breaking.

The great thing about moving images is their hypnotic quality and the number of digital platforms that are available for distributing moving image works. Screen based media is definitely the predominant form of communication in our age and I think there’s an opportunity for literature to embrace this by crossing into new digital forms. Animation should be able to work particularly well with poetry as both forms seem to be comfortable with the impossible.

Firstly, what are poetry films? One thing they are not (although they can be) is films of people reading or reciting poetry. Confused? Even the name of the genre is disputed. Poetry films appear under different guises as ‘poetryfilms’, ‘filmpoems, ‘video poems’, ‘multimedia poetry’, ‘e-poetry’ and ‘screen poetry’. Broadly speaking they are a combining of poetry/words, displayed as text or spoken, with accompanying images and viewed on a screen.  They can be created by the poet but they are usually a collaboration between poet and film maker. This is not a new subject. Some of the earliest films, created by the Dadaists, were what we would now call ‘poetry films’. In more recent years, with easier access to new media technology, more poetry films are being created and shown to audiences in festivals dedicated to this art form. Alastair Cook, who hosted the recent Filmpoem event in Dunbar, describes his interest as ‘a bit like gardening’. This is a good analogy. The fervour and intensity of the audience and practitioners was indeed like those gardeners who devote their time to growing auriculars. Film poems are tiny, exquisite and mesmerising.

The largest gathering of this dedicated crew is the Zebra poetry film festival held bi-annually in Berlin. The next one will be in 2014.

More than a thousand poets/film makers send material to this festival which has three days of film screenings. It has an international cohort and accepts films in all languages and in all styles. Recently the winning selections have been high production.

Canada hosts a film poetry festival, Visible Verse, created by Heather Hayley and there is a long standing one in Argentina, Video Bardo.

In the UK there are new festivals emerging.

In Bristol, myself and Sarah Tremlett have created ‘Liberated Words’, which ran the first UK screening of film poetry at the MIX Conference in 2012 and this year will host a full day at the Bristol poetry festival with screenings and discussions and Alastair Cook’s Filmpoem event will surely run again .

So what do you want to do if you want to create a poetry film? I would suggest that you investigate what is already out there. Theorists and practitioners have created manifestos and styles. As in any art form there is plenty of debate. Tom Konyves defined poetry films as having five ‘categories’; kinetic text, sound text, visual text, performance and cin (e) poetry. He coined the term ‘video poetry’ in 1982. More about him here.

The Moving Poems site, created by Dave Bonta, hosts a huge collection of poetry films  and information about world wide poetry film events.

Marc Neys displays his film poems on his site Swoon and these are shown frequently at poetry film festivals. There is a strong connection between Dave Bonta, Alastair Cook and Marc Neys and they encourage and influence each other. They use archive or found footage and create visually arresting films.

The South American film poets, such as Javier Robledo, are more experimental  while practitioners such as Martha McCollough use animation.

When you have decided on a style and approach do you find a fellow film maker or do you go it alone? For me the most interesting aspect of poetry film is the collaborative process. As a poet it can be challenge to ‘let go’ of control of the final outcome. A good poetry film is not just an ‘illustration’ of a poem, it is the melding of word and image which creates a separate experience. Or you can attend workshops in filmmaking skills such as those run by Adle Myers in Manchester.

Poetry films need not be difficult to make. All you need is access to an i-phone and i-movie or movie-maker software. This year I asked my performance poetry class to create a poetry film in week. Here is what Anna Twizell came up with.

Poetry film makers share their work on Facebook, Youtube and Vimeo. It is a supportive and encouraging community. Liberated Words welcome members of their Facebook group to share and discuss each other’s work.