instructions to the director of an unfilmable film

Tom Andrew’s poem is incredibly interesting. I like how strangely abstract the content of the poem is, while at the same saying things and describing scenes that, if we really think about, are almost perfectly tangible.
each line describes what a shot in a proposed film should be like. and, as the title states, a film made up of such shots would be impossible to make.
one line: the fifth shot is like swimming in the open sea and remembering you have to make a phone call.
another line: the eleventh shot is like a sudden precipice.
I like to spend my time soaked in film— whether watching, reading, or writing. The problem that always comes up however is when I realize that the perfect shot in the perfect film may be impossible because it is something that can’t be expressed in words or pictures, but the weird and often unexplainable feelings we get.
like the line: the second shot is like a name overheard in a restaurant. when we overhear a conversation in public, or simply just the mention of a familiar name, for a second it feels like we are part of some fleeting narrative that only exists in someone else’s world. but how do you convert that to the screen or the page.
or how do you properly relay that awkward feeling of part shame/part disconnect we get when we hear our own disembodied voice: The twelfth shot is like hearing your own voice played back on a machine.
Andrews does a great job of taking those odd moments that are usually gone before we even process them and make them familiar. each shot contains those feelings that move like ghosts in and out of us and he asks us to questions what it is about moments like that which make them so weird and enigmatic and special.

-wes edmond