Fiction Adaptation: Chosen Poem

After reading through all of the poems on offer, I decided on Love Ambitions by Deanna Rodger...

LOVE AMBITIONS

I wanna be your mirror so I see

What you see.

And you see

What I see

And all I see is you

Gazing at me.

I wanna be.

A debilitating disease,

Make you weak in the knees,

But bless you when you sneeze,

And miss you,

Like a ghost misses form when you leave.

I wanna be.

The big issue

Maan, that you give 2.50 to,

Compassions material form once held by you

Smell like you,

The scent that you apply

Provide the glisten of desire that resides in your eye, I

Want to be your;

Bed, your sheet, your pillow and your cover

The one that I smother

Your bedtime lover,

Comfort in the form of a significant other

Your, coco butter

Invade your pores with the cream of me

Just so I can touch you ubiquitously.

Your pupils, teach me to see

That, I'm the one for you and

You complete me.

The only facebook message you'll reply to.

I wanna be the receptor your ligand will bind to.

The pen lids you chew

Your most comfortable shoes

The one thing you'll never lose

The only choice you'll ever choose.

I want to be.

Every,

Single,

Girl you've,

Ever,

Encountered.

So that technically,

I'm the only one.

The game you play for fun.

I'll let you monopolize

And think that you've won

Fairly!

I wanna be,

The hand that you lay

I'll let you handwrite my game

For

I wanna be

The poetry you write

Sublimation with a flow that's so,

Tight.

Like your boy,

Share all instances of carefree joy

Fight your fights

Share your pain

Then make it my own.

Your phone,

Use me to communicate

All feelings to love loss despair and hate

For I wanna be

The Soca that makes you whine, pine

The architect of your love line

Please, let me design.

The memory you trigger when you're down.

The riddle you ponder that makes you frown

With confusion, tryna figure the answer

I'll be your lecturer

Guide to conclusion that it's all cos you love her

Me.

Your

Student ID

I wanna be

Part of your identity

Provide knowledge

See you need me

To get into the library

Fuck it,

I can only be

The woman I am

The woman you see.

The reason this stood out to me and led to me choosing it is due to how manic it feels. When I started to read it I thought "Oh here we go, another cheesy love poem". But the further I got into it, the more I started to spark ideas of how this could be presented. Certain words stood out to me like disease, smother, and invade. It made me start to automatically create the film in my mind, consisting of nothing but a young woman in a brightly lit room, beginning with the impression that she's pining over her lover, and then slowly, the mood turns more and more unusual, and we start to realise that she's actually deeply in love with someone that she's not in a relationship with, and has created an illusion in her mind and developed an obsession.

I can really see this working, with no narrated words or V/O, just the audience connecting directly with this broken woman as she makes them really physically feel the words on screen while she's acting them out, closed off, living this psychotic fantasy in her bedroom. I can imagine piano-based, subtle but fitting music, and lots of handheld shots at varying distances, but mainly close-ups.

After doing some research on the poem, I found two videos. One is the poet herself, reciting the poem on stage. I feel that this backs up the dark tone that I feel the poem has, due to how manically she presents it...

(Deanna Rodger - Love Ambitions, 2012)

The second video has a mixed feel. There's the romantic colour of pink used in certain shots, however there's a very creepy vibe coming from the shots that include the poet reciting the poem as a silhouette, with pre-production effects of black and grey ghosts of her in the background, and an echo on her voice. I think this perfectly captures the feelings I'll want my actress to portray. As I want the audience to find her clearly obsessed and delusional, but still have some sympathy for her. Below is the creative video directed by Theresa Varga...

(LOVE AMBITIONS, 2013)

I plan to get into contact with Deanna Rodger, let her know of the film I'm planning on creating, and have her input on my portrayal of her poem.

Bibliography:

Deanna Rodger - Love Ambitions [television programme online] Love Writers Block YouTube (2012) 2 mins 26 sec At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzAM7RJ2opE (Accessed on: 30.09.15)

LOVE AMBITIONS [television programme online] Youth Media Agency YouTube (2013) 2 mins 40 sec At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qCoj_abuNw (Accessed on: 30.09.15)