Sonder Research

I define a videopoem as a wedding of word and image. Achieving that level of integration is difficult and rare. In my experience the greatest challenge of this hybrid genre is fusing voice and vision, aligning ear with eye. For me, voice is the critical element, medium and venue secondary considerations. Unlike a music video — the inevitable and ubiquitous comparison — a videopoem stars the poem rather than the poet, the voice seen as well as heard. (Emphasis added)

-Heather Haley
http://www.heatherhaley.com

Similar projects that have been kickstarted
Although I found it difficult to find kickstarter pages for projects that were specifically aimed at turning the definition of a word into a video, I did find projects that visualised poetry through both video and animation.
Here are some of the projects that I felt were the closest match to Sonder.

Motion Poems
Poems that are animated – raised $16,107
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/375616979/poems-on-the-big-screen-motionpoems?play=1&ref=search

Help Emo Film come to fruition
Visualised poems – raised $1,148
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/911938950/help-emo-film-come-to-fruition?ref=search

Happy Hour: Martinis & Secrets
Film based on a poem – raised $7,329
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/869400289/happy-hour-martinis-and-secrets?play=1&ref=s

Examples of videos that inspired me
Cisco – Tommorow starts here

I really like the idea of using lots of totally different clips in rapid succession, where the clips don’t relate to each other but they do relate to the spoke word which is overlayed, for example when it says ‘waking up’ a light flicks on.
This is something I can use, I think it would work very well for Sonder. The light and upbeat music also helps to hold the clips together and keep pace.

Philip Bloom – Bitten by the frost

I like the idea of having a constant figure in shot, I could use this for Sonder but as Sonder is about everyone I would have to use many different actors and try and align them within the shots. Whilst this might sound like a good idea I suspect that it would be riddled with logistical issues, such as obtaining the needed actors, getting them to align in each shot and managing to keep each shot accurate to the spoke word. There are some shots where it is not really appropriate to have someone in shot and that would have to been worked around.

Alan Watts – Nothingness

This sort of video montage is what I am going for, however I am looking for a more fast paced video which focuses on people instead of landscapes.

On the topic of subtitles
I considered creating a kinetic typography style video but soon decided that typography is not one of my strengths, and so I decided to opt for subtitles at the bottom of the video. This way the video is more accessible to deaf people and/or people who may not have English as a first language. The video will contain multiple accents and so hopefully the subtitles will eliminate any confusion that anyone may have, whilst making the video as accessible as possible.

I considered having text subtitles like this over the video but decided that the pacing would be too fast and make the subtitles too illegible. I opted for white subtitles on the black background of the letterbox created by displaying 2.35:1 aspect ratio on a 16:9 video player such as youtube. I think this works well.
The ‘film burn’ or ‘light leak’ effects shown in this video made it more visually pleasing, this is an effect that I could use to transition my shots into one another and to help the flow of the video.

I considered using text like this as an overlay, and whilst I like this idea I feel that the visuals play a more important role and so they should really be the main focus, the words are being relayed in audio form anyway.