A Life's Work

Bethlehem, PA – 2018

Natalie Chickey is a natural-born teacher, but her path to teaching twelfth grade English wasn't always a straight line. In "A Life's Work," Ms. Chickey reflects on her time in the classroom and where her passion will take her next. 

​

In my Sophomore year at Lafayette College, I completed this project as an interview assignment in my first production course, "Making Media." This project gave me an opportunity to share the story of an educator who has left a significant impact on my life. The timing of this assignment happened to coincide with Ms. Chickey's final semester of teaching. This interview not only allowed me to capture her joy for her work, but timely reflections as she prepared to retire. 

​

To complete this assignment, I completed two interviews with Ms. Chickey. Since we had a preexisting relationship, the interviews were conversational, and the casualness of our dialogue allowed for personal insight into her experiences and unique anecdotes. However, after completing one first section of the interview, we discovered that the microphone had malfunctioned halfway through–so much audio had been lost. In this seemingly catastrophic moment, I was grateful to be interviewing someone who knew me. After explaining to Ms. Chickey what had happened, she simply said "Well, let me get a drink of water and we'll try this again."

Later, when presenting this video along with my peers' projects in class, we found that most everyone's microphones had created obstacles in their recordings (the risks of using school provided equipment). Still, I am grateful for the story both on screen and behind the scenes that wouldn't otherwise exist without the inspiration of this assignment.

This video was shot on a Canon T5i and edited in Adobe Premiere Pro.