So I finally dropped the film file off at the cinema today for uploading to their system. Fingers crossed it will play properly and look and sound good on the day.
I am making a book to accompany the film, though it won’t be ready for 12 March!! Have some lovely contributions so that is what I will be focusing on.
As I said, video/film editing software seems to have a mind of its own. Played back my “final” version and my final saves weren’t in there! So exporting now….. fingers crossed.
So, I am actually writing this as the video renders…. I can hear the computer whirring away.
I’ve had to quickly pick up working with the Adobe Premiere interface thanks to my truly excellent co-editor Ben Hunt. He has done a great job although I still find software has a mind of its own when it comes to the final edit: just when you think it is all done, you go back and find loads of glitches and frames in the wrong place.
The sound editor, Tom McCarthy, has done the best job possible, considering how unconsidered my recordings were.
Fingers crossed now with the export and testing at the cinema (Dover’s Silver Screen cinema). This is going to take a few days so I am cutting it a bit fine if there are any more edits to do.
So now I am finalising the sound and have found a sound editor to do a very professional job at a preferential rate! Phew. There is quite a lot of narrative so the sound does have to be as good as I can make it. I think I need to get some slightly better equipment though for the next project.
So the video is nearly complete at 50 mins! Just a few credits at the end to finalise. It is being shown publicly on 12 March and 12 April in Dover’s Silver Screen cinema…. eek.
I’ve even managed to get the blurb together:
Watercress and Daffodilsis a video by Clare Smith which explores the parallels between the structural laying bare of Russell Gardens as it is about to undergo a major restoration project as part of Dover District Council’s Kearsney Parks project. It also reveals a a personal story connected to Kearsney Court Gardens, of which Russell Gardens was once an integral part. An underlying thread is the idea of the garden as a healing and restorative space.
Kearsney Court gardens was designed as a setting for the original Kearsney Court house, by the Edwardian landscape architect, Thomas H. Mawson (1861-1933), and Russell Gardens is a very rare example of Mawson’s work, open to the public in the south east.
The title of the video Watercress and Daffodils takes its name from the fact that the nameKearsney is derived from the French cressonnière, a place where watercress grows, the presence of daffodils at Kearsney Court gardens. Moreover, in 2013, a new daffodil was developed in his honour, the narcissus ‘Thomas H. Mawson’, in the Netherlands to celebrate the first 100 years of the Peace Palace at the Hague, the gardens of which were designed by Mawson.
Clare Smith's mixed English/Chinese heritage informs her perspective on issues of identity and categorisation. Her nomadic childhood and early adulthood have meant a somewhat ambivalent relationship to place, reinforced by the sense of ambiguity that comes from her mixed identity. Smith works with drawing, print media, collage and moving image to investigate this ambivalence, with references to craft, the importance of labour and the handmade. Through her choice of materials and approaches, she creates work which attempts to create a sense of unity, an interpretation of Homi Bhabha's "Third Space" - seen as a space in which different parts can come together to challenge dominant ideas of wholeness. Collaboration is part of Smith’s practice and she is also co-founder of Dover Arts Development (DAD) together with painter, Joanna Jones. This involves working with many different artists, curation, organisation, event management, creating networks across East Kent and influencing the public realm in Dover. Clare works from a studio in Dover. She has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
