When first confronted with the challenge of creating a
podcast using the software program Audacity for my Digital Public History
course, I immediately knew who I wanted to interview – my old friend and
colleague from the Waterloo Region Museum in Kitchener, Stephanie Vaillant. If there
is one person I know who can do anything within the realm of Public History, it
would be Steph. She has traveled across
the globe working in various archival and museum roles, including at the Juno
Beach Centre in France and at the Puke Ariki Museum Libraries in New Zealand. Now Stephanie, who also has an extensive
background in theatre, has landed her dream position as the Cataloging and
Digitization Archivist with the Stratford Festival Archives. I like to joke with Steph that she doesn’t quite fit
the mould of a stereotypical “quiet” archivist or librarian due to
her love of theatre and performing. On
her spare time, Stephanie is also a War of 1812 re-enactor and singer, part of a duo specializing in historic music titled Historical Harmonies.
You can get a sense of her life re-enacting and singing
on the battlefield in the short documentary, “Weekend Warriors”:
Stephanie’s introduction to public history, however, was the
same as mine. We entered into this world working as costumed student interpreters in the living history village at Waterloo Region Museum. In fact, we recently
made a hilarious discovery that an old photograph of us (which I have no memory
of it ever being taken) working at the Peter Martin Mennonite farm house is currently
being used for marketing on the Waterloo Region Museum’s website (Ah!): https://www.waterlooregionmuseum.ca/en/doon-heritage-village/building-stories-virtual-tour-app.aspx.
Some of my closest friends are people I met while working in
museums, and I think part of that comes from having this unique, shared
experience. The museum and public history world is one that inspires a lot of “shop
talk”, even outside of that space. When
we get together outside of work, inevitably we talk shop, as we all understand where we are coming from, including the joys, oddities, and challenges that come with this
profession.
Having been friends with Steph for about 14 years, the first
challenge I had in this podcasting process was trying to approach the interview
as though I knew very little about her and deciding on a line of questioning. Considering we usually just have lengthy,
casual conversations about these topics, the interview process felt very
unnatural. While the final product appears conversational, this was achieved
through many hours of editing. I made an editorial decision, however, NOT to
cut out all the laughter and moments of subtle inside jokes, as this felt
like it would take away from some of the joy and spontaneity of the podcast. As most people can relate when talking with a friend,
15 minutes (the time criteria for our podcasts) was not nearly enough time. In retrospect, I wish we had recorded our
discussion AFTER the interview, the one that happened over tea and dessert. The
recorded interview seemed like the tip of the iceberg in comparison. When the microphone was off, so was the self-consciousness, allowing for a much more free-flowing talk!
The interview currently sits at 16 minutes and 14 seconds. These 16 minutes and 14 seconds took a full
evening, and at the very least 10 hours of trying to figure out Audacity and editing
the numerous mistakes I made during the interview process.
One of the biggest technical challenges during the interview
was with the microphone. I borrowed this essential piece of equipment from a
classmate in the MA Public History program (thanks Sean!), but evidently I did
not fully understand how to use it. For some reason, I was not able to pause
the recording and listen to what we had discussed with the microphone still
plugged into my laptop. Therefore, I unplugged the microphone between
questions. Of course, no surprise, I hit “Record” when returning to the discussion without plugging the mic back in… and my laptop microphone started
recording instead. What a difference in quality, and I probably made this mistake
a dozen times. Poor Stephanie, not only were we awkwardly trying to converse sitting
beside each other on her basement couch with the mic stationed between us, but
there were many times I had to ask her the same question repeatedly!
I also discovered that when the pressure is on, I am not always the
most eloquent interviewer. Thankfully, Stephanie is a master, and her background
in theatre certainly helped with her clear, concise answers to my questions (and
unlike me, she never said “Stratfoul” instead of “Stratford”). I was also clearly Audacity illiterate
compared to Stephanie. My friend, aka the Martha Stewart of the public history
world, had no problem with this program.
She uses it at her work in the archives, as well as in her spare time
recording her music. To say the least, I am not sure I could have recorded the
interview without her expertise!
While I do not think I will have a career in
podcasting, at least Stephanie reassured me that even the professionals at the
Stratford Festival mess up their dialogue now and then. Here is a link she suggested to hilarious bloopers
from the cast of the Stratford Festival’s current performance of “The Rocky
Horror Picture Show”:
For the full interview and podcast with Stephanie, visit the "Shared Authority" podcasts on SoundCloud created by Western’s MA in Public History class
of 2018:
And, if you are interested in checking out Stephanie's singing duo,
Historical Harmonies, here is the link to their Facebook page:
Enjoy! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment