Maya Lin Interview

I got a chance to work an interview with the artist Maya Lin recently. If you're not aware of her work, she's probably most famous for the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is currently housing her exhibit Systematic Landscapes, and they needed to get her on tape during her brief visit here for the opening. If you haven't seen the show, you should.

The interesting thing about this video is that the actual interview footage of Maya and the footage of Kathryn asking the questions weren't shot on the same day, or even in the same room! Due to a variety of circumstances, we had to do them a week apart, and while the original interview was held in the main gallery, the pickup stuff was shot in a classroom. The lighting in each room was very different, so I had to compensate a great deal in the field and in post. Both were shot on a Sony PD-170, but the main interview used a full three-point Arri Softbank kit, while the pickup was shot with natural light and an Arri 650 to fill (we used the white wall as a backlight). Cutting the sound was a bit challenging, as it had to seem seamless between the shots.

This is not at all uncommon in real-world production, and it seemed like a good thing to post here. Enjoy!

-Aaron AuBuchon, Video Production Program Facilitator