Some TikTok Talk | Aba Hutchison | Episode 765

Aba Hutchison | Episode 765

Aba Hutchison is a new potter/ceramicist who has been studying the craft for a year and a half under Jonathan Williams of Rock Hill Pottery Center. Before Aba studied ceramics, she focused mainly on portraiture which has a strong influence on her style, featuring several freehand sgraffito or glaze pencil portraits. Aba also designs section plates for adults.

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What does it mean to take some time to navigate and find out what the TikTok culture is like?

Basically it means scroll through your for you page, that’s basically the home page where you see all the videos. Scroll through there are just see what the humor is like. Different people have their own sense of humor. TikTok has it’s own sense of humor in a way, I guess. So you have to see what people find funny. What is the lingo that people on TikTok use. Who is popular on TikTok and why did they get popular on TikTok. Just different things like that. How does the app work. What does it look like to go live. What do people do when they go live on TikTok.

Are there TikTok no-nos?

I feel like a TikTok no-no might be like using sound unless it is ASMR, the audio sensory thing where people have the satisfying sounds that they like hearing. Like natural sounds like the clay being ripped or something happening on the wheel that sounds really nice or maybe a carving tool making a nice sound. If it’s not that, don’t do video where there’s people talking all over the place and over it and try to use a trending sound. There are sounds that are really popular on the app. If you scroll through different videos you will notice that different sounds and that they use the same sounds all the time. Find out what those sounds are and use them. I think that is the big yes. The big no is to use a sound that nobody knows about unless you know the video is so good that it is just going to succeed without the sound.

How important is it to name out the music that is in the background?

That is so important. I think a lot of people would argue that the music makes or breaks the success of the video. You can have a sound that is really successful, let’s say that someone really big used that sound, it’s almost like the stock market. If somebody that’s really big uses a sound then it kind of makes that sound more popular and if your video is attached to that sound, when people click on the sound it shows all the videos that use that sound. And if your video is somewhat popular enough to show up kind of near the top of that sound page, that basically means that you can get use that big person’s viewership that clicks on that sound to somehow figure out who you are. So it really is a sound search.

How does one go about harvesting a sound to apply it to your work?

So there are a few ways. One thing and the most natural way is to just scroll through the for you page and notice, Oh I guess everyone is using this sound, I guess I should use it to. So you bookmark the sound a nd save it for later. So that’s one way. Another way is an app that you have to pay for but it’s called TikTok trends. I think it’s hilarious but it is literally a stock market app like for Bitcoin. It will show a dot if the sound is not going up or down in trend or it will show a green upwards arrow if a song is going up in popularity. If you look up #tiktokmarketing you will find some people that will teach you and they will point out trending sounds.

Is it okay to do a photo montage on TikTok or do you think that would not be for this platform?

I think it’s a risk. I would say sometimes. I would say if it fits the trend. Because sometimes there are sounds that maybe have a fast beat and you can do a thing called sound sync where you take photos that you have in your actual camera roll and then sync it up to the clap clap clap, to that beat. But most of the time people want to see video and not photos that are flashing.

What kind of equipment does one need to film for TikTok?

All you really need is your phone, just don’t be squeamish. Maybe get a good phone case though. Because a lot of times when I am TikToking my phone gets completely dirty. So if you are squeamish about getting your phone dirty then maybe get a case that you dedicate to doing pottery, but all you really need is a phone. You could get a tripod if you really want to but I recommend getting a phone because you can use your hand to move the phone around zoom in and get these interesting angles and things like that.