A River in a river

A visual poem, inspired by fluidity and deep appreciation of nature.

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Inspiration

During a visit to the Public Library of my grandparents hometown in Portugal, I came across António Ramos Rosa's poem "Um Rio no Rio" in a limited edition poems anthology. I was deeply touched and intrigued by this poem, which inspired me to work into a short film adaptation.

What it does

Read like a prayer but felt like a plead, "A River" is a visual render that aims to expand the original poem's reach, invoking everyday images with a sense of infinite flow. Run by invisible rules(hands), what's behind this presence we feel, fear and sometimes challenge?

How we built it

Sound was the first stage, as the narration and music was, an experiment, rendered at once, and displayed an interesting degree of creative interpretation. Inspired by the emotional reading, I got motivated to pursue this as a visual poem. Then I went thru a phase of working out the style, testing different ways to illustrate and looking for a few different types of trace that could form a cohesive state. After landing at the current styles, I animated and started editing, concatenating symbols and during the process, learning how the pieces could relate and oppose each other. I used mostly Minimax for this task, as part of their CPP program I got unlimited generations and that helped me get find the sweet spot between a film painting and an animation. Higgsfield was used for some specific motion shots, also as part of their CPP program.

Challenges we ran into

Editing the narration was tough, because it worked so well at first, but wasn't 100%. Figuring out how to patch it was a bit of a headache. Some shots were composed in after effects, arriving at a more precise result.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm particularly proud of this mixture of poetry, painting and animation. I think this ties in some of my pleasures in life, making use of my skillset to bring something to life. I'm also very happy to be able to amplify such distinguished voice among portuguese poets, working on my native language and somehow making it more accessible.

What we learned

That asking goes a long way. Not only I was able to joing the CPP programs but deep into the work, I got in touch with the poem's Publisher, who authorized the use of the poem for this film.

What's next for A River in a river

River in a River will now join different festivals and hopefully screen in many places. It makes me want to work on move visual poems so this might be just the beginning of a series.

Built With

  • hailuominimax
  • higgsfield
  • premiere
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