ACT - Project - The Clay Monger
- Maya Field
- May 9, 2021
- 9 min read
These projects are inspiring for more creative interview filming techniques:
What story and why do i want to tell this? - change of career, doing something for herself, pursueing her passion, pottery journey, lockdown link(?).
Have emailed Maria!
Initial prep call:
Is there wifi in the shed for screenshots
Read her the questions I already have, does she have ones to add and remove?
The focus will be on your pottery journey, any other focus points?
Plan when to do the interview
CHECK HER ZOOM QUALITY/ LAPTOP PICTURE QUALITY FOR SCREENSHOTS
Record the initial chat so call on zoom
Laptop? So can move to studio.
Questions I have for Maria:
What made you leave Iona
Why pottery
Ever done pottery before
Background in art
Does Lockdown have anything to do with your decision to do pottery
What/who inspires/ inspired you
When did you start
Where do you make your pottery
What is your making process
Favourite part of the making process
Where do you get the clay and glazes from
What's your favourite piece that you've made
What do you get from doing pottery
Are you/ will you sell your work
Are you/ will you make a website?
Future plans
Video of her throwing!
TEST FOR AUDIO AND VISUAL:
Call on zoom
Record using zoom - she will use her Iphone
Record audio by phone too - test this to see if can seperate audio from the zoom recording
Screenshots of:
Pottery studio - outside and inside shots
Favourite thing made
Range of things made
Garden shot - view - sky and birds
Pottery tools
Kiln and other large equipment
Maria in apron but without head, include shoes though
Posts to potentially use from her insta:
HER LOGO
THE STUFF SHE STARTED WITH COMPARED TO THE STUFF SHE'S MAKING NOW.
INSTA SNAPSHOT AT END TO PROMOTE HER?
USE INSTA AS CAPTIONS FOR PROCESS IE. GLAZING PRACTISE, SHOTS OF HER WORKING, THE CLAY MONGER STONE
(Later I decided not to use her insta pics because it wouldn't be my work and I wanted to keep the aesthetic of the video the same. However, she sent me the footage of the view from her garden which I did include and it looked the same.)
Notes from notebook:
Initial chat reflection:
The initial chat went well and all the questions I wanted answering were. I made sure that Maria was comfortable with those questions and whether she had any to add. I recorded the whole conversation with my phone too as back up, incase something went wrong with the zoom audio.
The Interview how it went and reflection:
The interview went so smoothly and Maria was such an enthusiastic and creative person to collaborate with! After the interview she took me through the pottery process from start to finish, 'threw' a pot and showed me around her studio. I thought about uploading the raw footage to this blog post but decided against it as there were some personal bits to the conversation and it would be a very large file to upload. The whole zoom lasted around 2 hours. The birds where so loud in her garden that they were picked up by the mic and so I kept that in for authenticity, also it wouldn't have been possible to seperate her voice and the birds.
I took screenshots throughout, and I'm very glad I did because they were higher quality than screenshotting the video in Premiere.
I asked all the question + extra ones on the spot.
Who Maria is and how do I know her?
I've known her since I was 6. I was bestfriends with her daughter at primary school. Our families are friends and she was my brother's primary school teacher at Iona Rudolf Steiner School where she taught.
I imported the video footage and audio files into Premiere Pro. I then got creative and experimented with an initial shot, introducing Maria as 'The Clay Monger', using Photoshop.
Here they are:
I decided to use the second zoom screenshot because the brief is to not include the person in the frame. I tried to cover her face with the lettering in the first try.
Edited: brightness/contrast, hue/vibrance (which I kept for the one I used in the video).
This is the one I chose:
ANOTHER TITLE: MEET... or JUST THE CLAY MONGER...?
I revisited editing the screenshot, so here is the second and final edit of the first shot:
The shot I chose for the final video:
I wanted to include a credit slide which would include my copyright, her instagram name and eventually her website name. I used her instagram profile picture rather than her pottery stamp 'MW' because I didn't manage to get a photo the physical stamp during the zoom meeting.
Her instagram profile picture:
I edited the image in Photoshop, turning it into an oval shape to mimic a logo.
Edits of the final slide:
The edit I chose:
"Contact sheet" of the images I screenshotted in the live interview:
I went through the interview section of the footage, spiltting up the audio so each question is seperate. This was to make it easier when I matched the audio to certain images/ parts of the video. I also fitted the initial slide I created in Photoshop to frame and added it to the start of the video. 51 minutes after first edit where I removed all unecessary audio and video clips.
Process screenshots:
Research re: sequencing the video -
From 51 minutes I cut the video down to 20 mins. After another bout of video editing, I got it down to 1.05 minutes. I will now add the screenshots in. I added the screenshots in and got it to 1.50 minutes. I now have enough space to add the throwing clip in. I've edited the video further, speeding parts up and slowing them down, all expirementation. The cuts are now smoother too and it's come to 1 minute 40.
The sides of the video frame don't always match up in the video because some are from zoom and some are screenshots. I fixed one clip that looked very different but I couldn't fix them all to look the same as each other.
I thought about adding in text/titles for the "Duppies" she made for her collaboration with Fcrm for example. But I thought it would change the tone/ look of the video. So I kept the words to just the first slide and the end slide.
Video effects I could use and on which parts:
Her pots
The cabin/ inside/ the view
The wet clay process
The pots in the kiln/ zooming in
Speed up scenes
Reflections whilst editing the audio - I now realise that I should have muted myself on zoom whilst Maria was answering the questions. Only a few tiny parts were tarnished by my voice over the top.
I am listening closer to each word and sound she makes. Seeing her voice in the sound bites is interesting too because you pick up on the speech pattern which is helpful when editing. A word that ended with 'D' had an extra, very soft, dull grunt almost at the end of the pronunciation for example.
I was painstakingly editing a segment of audio and it dawned on me that saying, 'she does pottery in her cabin', can be shown through images and the "message" will still be clearly conveyed.
First audio edit was 53 minutes. Second edit of the audio came out at 11 minutes. Third edit came to 6 minutes. Fourth edit came to 3.50 minutes. The fifth edit is 2.45 minutes.
I realised that I hadn't introduced Maria in the interview so I asked her to send me a whatsapp voice clip of an introduction, following these pointers: Hello, then your name, then the clay monger, that you were a teacher and now a Potter. The whatsapp audio file wouldn't upload to Photoshop so I decided not to introduce her specifically but just use the first slide.
Initial 2 minute "completed" edit:
This shows the edit I got to when I realised I didn't know what my story was and I didn't think it had enough information in, rather lots of inspirational quotes. So, I decided to run it by my brother who is studying film at college and who is going to Manchester Film School next year.
I had spoken to him earlier on in the project about some tips and whether I should bother with a storyboard, which he agreed I shouldn't.
He watched my edit and gave me incredibly useful pointers. He advised me to work out my story because that's the most important thing. I knew it was the best thing to do to achieve the video I wanted but after all the work I'd done, I had to basically start again. So, I went back to the 11 minute audio edit. I then cut it up and labelled it so that I could understand what the story is, rather than making up a story. To let the story come to me, I went through the video and wrote down catagories that the clips fit in to. I stuck it to my wardrobe, looked at it and annotated it.
I had cut the audio clips very fast with no natural pauses, so I re-edited it to let it breath too.
I did the necessary changes and got it looking like this:
I showed Taran this version who said that this was good but there was something he thought I could do. That was the dream starting scene. He allowed me to achieve the vision I had for it and I was so grateful. I also added in the piano music to the rest of the video to keep it coherent. I had the sound effects too which I leveled correctly to fit under the main audio of her speaking.
Music: https://www.bensound.com/ is where I found the piano music for the video:
Piano music - my edit:
I tried to make the piano music follow/ match the audio.
Sound bite of sound effects:
Maria sent me a soundscape of the birds and a soundscape of a tool scraping on clay seperately which I included in the final video along with the other sound bites collected from the original interview audio.
I was able to use most of the audio as it was and added the dream scene:
Taran, my brother, let me feel that I was still in control of my video and he didn't take over but just gave advice. I added in a saturation layer on the dream footage of her to make it warmer.
I then did all the following edits until I was happy with it. You can see the changes I made below, including, slowing down/ removing parts of the video sequence so that it too could "breath":
Final Video I uploaded to moodle and showed at the critique session:
When I finished this edit I was so proud and so happy with the outcome because it was just as magical and bright as I had dreamed it would be. I will admit I was disheartened when I recieved the critique feedback at first, however, I then took some time away from the edit and could then understand and agree with the feedback.
Reflection from the critique session: Could shuffle visuals around to make it more linear with the audio. I was also advised to change the order of the images to reflect the shift in her career and her mention of being a teacher. It works as a promotional video according to my lecturers but doesn't portray this shift from teaching. (This I didn't agree with as my video is supposed to focus on her passion and new career as a promotional video for her and her work).
Re-edits after critique session:
I watched it through and could see the parts I wanted to change so I didn't need to start from scratch as most of it was kept.
The Final Video:
Reflection on final video: The final edit allows for slower transitions which I think makes the video less intense and calmer. I am happy with the edit and will put this on my photography instagram page too. If I was to edit it again and had more time, I would leave larger pauses as I think it's still to fast, which is the only thing I'm unhappy with.
Maria was happy with the video and I believe she is going to use it on her instagram page - @theclaymonger.
Reflective Statement for the 'Applied Camera Techniques' module:
I found this module engaging and informative throughout. The tasks helped us gain the necessary skills to complete our project.
I found task 1 particularly interesting because I hadn’t learned about text and context before. I think my edited covid adverts were very effective.
I conducted a study on the wooden man in task 2, shooting from multiple angles, helping me learn through visual references new and better angles to shoot from. It was a useful and informative task.
Sequencing was something new to me, but I found task 3 very fun. I enjoyed creating a new narrative by sequencing the images in differing ways.
I am happy with how the sound bite turned out for task 4 and enjoyed editing it. The process of creating the soundscape helped me learn the audio editing skills needed for my project.
I loved creating the project and conducting the interview itself. I learned editing skills that I can take into future projects. The final video is something I’m proud of.
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