click on the image to view the video
Creator
R.W. Perkins, film-maker, writer, USA
Synopsis
Profile is a stream of consciousness combination of poetry and prose. The visuals of the video represent the chaos of thought. Both the subject and name of the poem reflect online social identities, blurbs about one's life, creating a narrative of the day. People are revealing themselves through still images and abbreviated phrases. Brevity has become a new language. The video was conceptualized in 2012.
Text
PROFILE
I am awake; I am clean and ready for the day, prepared for the onslaught, feed the dogs, kiss my wife, coffee, two sugars, cream, a midday headache, I toil through the workday, humbled to toil, while I contemplate the small pleasures to come. My emotional locomotive, to be and to breathe, but I am still at the sink, I am still brushing my teeth. I am still cleaning my face. Sometimes I'm not sure if the world is still spinning outside my bathroom.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the brain...
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PROFILE
I am thinking, I am amused at a funny thing that somebody said to me from the night before, but I can’t quite recall the phrasing or even the subject. I remember how hard It made me laugh. Now the story isn't that important; I can't help but smile. But what the fuck did they say?
Never mind...
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PROFILE
I am lost in my head at the supermarket. I am thinking of the inevitable end of my life and about saving 20 cents on an off brand of yogurt that I know I won't like. Also Lost In The Supermarket by the Clash is now stuck in my head.
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PROFILE
I exist, some say as a solitary creature that craves the company and troubles of others. "Wait, who said that? Maybe it was me. I don’t know." Anyway, as I sit in my backyard and I stare up at the blue sky what was once an endless azure is now speckled, with birds, clouds and jet airplanes, I do not feel small, rather, I feel like a giant. Perspective is important here when compared to a virtual nothing I think that you'll find I have, fingers, toes, nose, and eyes, so depending on your standards I am, quite prodigious.
PROFILE
I am a voyeur. From the comfort of my couch, my dogs at my feet, I can see the neighbor pace in front of their window. Down the road, in the distance a jogger runs, wiping the sweat from his brow, patting at his stomach to remind himself what he's been working so hard at. Following close behind a woman with a baby in a stroller, she's adjusting her eyeglasses every few seconds, she sees me, she is glaring back at me, with a suggestive gaze. She is saying her day is going about as well as could be expected and she is thrilled that she looks so good in her new sunglasses. As the mother passes, I see the runner fade into the future, and I am reminded that the neighbors are now hidden safely in their homes and that the jet airplane overhead is full of self-importance, but I can’t help but wonder, can they see me?
PROFILE
I'm awake, I can think, and I exist, and I can see that today I am prodigious, and the sky and all that surrounds it, will come and go as I see fit.
From an article by Brenda Clews, VidPoFilm
"R.W. Perkins has it all in this video. When I saw it I felt it was a marker of our era. That surely many films of this type will follow, but his was the first. Identity in the twenty-first century is shaped by social media sites. Your life is not contained in your private diaries and photo albums anymore; it's all on-line now. The notion of who we are has never been more global or more revealing.
One's Facebook profile updates and photo albums provide many snapshots of a life. R.W. Perkins has captured that sense of a collided life, a life of snapshots and home videos and snatches of writing. It is a fast-paced life. We describe ourselves to each other. There are millions of us. Facebook is approaching 1/7th of the world’s population. It is a social media site that is creating a twenty-first sense of self.
Put it all together and you get, Profile."
Source: Moving Poems
R.W. Perkins
Festivals
Filmpoem Festival, Dunbar Scotland - Aug. 3rd & 4th, 2013.
International Film Poetry Festival, Athens Greece - Dec. 10th, 2012.
Pluto Audio and Visual Festival, Opwijk Belgium - Oct. 24th, 2012.
Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin Germany - Oct. 19th - 23rd, 2012.
Visible Verse Poetry Film Festival, Vancouver B.C. Canada - Oct. 13, 2012.
Denver Indie Fest, Denver CO. Aug 30th - Sep. 1st, 2012.
New Belgium Brewery's Clips Beer and Film Tour 2012.
Publications
Profile & Challenge Me Vista, The Connotation Press, Jan 1, 2013.
Profile, Atticus Review, Mar. 12, 2012.
Bio
R.W. Perkins is a writer, filmmaker, and digital marketing director living and working in Loveland, CO, USA. Perkins' screenplay Small Town Remedies was selected as a quarter-finalist in the Screencraft dramatic screenplay competition in October 2018, and is currently in pre-production. Perkins' films were featured on the Atticus Review in July of 2018, and his short film, Visions of Snow, screened at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in September 2018 and at the Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival in October 2018. His films have been featured at film festivals all over the world, including an 18-state tour with the New Belgium Brewery Clips Beer & Film Tour. His short subject film The Big Wait was selected as a top 20 finalist in Canon and Ron Howard's Project Imagination nationwide film competition. In 2015 he wrote and directed his first feature film, Crash & Burn Stories. You can also find Perkins' written and digital works on Moving Poems, The Denver Egotist, The Connotation Press, and The Huffington Post Denver. In addition, he is the creator and curator of the Juteback Poetry Film Festival in Fort Collins, CO.
