The Great Pottery Throw Down

From DocuWiki

1 General Information
2 Cover
3 Information
4 Screenshots
5 Technical Specs
6 Links

[edit] General Information

Arts Documentary hosted by Sara Cox, published by BBC in 2015 - English narration

[edit] Cover

[edit] Information

The Great Pottery Throw Down Sara Cox invites 10 home pottery enthusiasts to gather in Stoke-on-Trent, where they take part in a competitive throwing contest to determine which of them should be named Top Potter. Through a series of 18 challenges, taking place over the course of 35 days, the competitors will be judged on their craft skills and creativity by ceramic artist Kate Malone and master potter Keith Brymer Jones.

[edit] Part 1

The competition gets under way as the amateurs take part in a four-day assignment, in which they must produce a set of stackable kitchen bowls from lumps of earthenware clay. They also face a Spot Test, in which they must attach handles to 20 mugs within a strict time limit, and a Throw Down, where the judges ask them to make as many egg-cups as they can within 20 minutes.

[edit] Part 2

In Stoke-on-Trent, nine potters have to make decorative hand basins, as well as add a surface design to plain tiles for judges Kate Malone and Keith Brymer Jones. They are also challenged to throw the tallest cylinder they can while blindfolded.

[edit] Part 3

Judges Kate Malone and Keith Brymer Jones ask the remaining potters to make 10 identical long necked vases using the Raku technique. This Japanese method of decorating and firing dates back to the 16th century and requires the contestants to take their red hot vases straight out of the kiln and plunge them into a bin full of combustible materials.

[edit] Part 4

It is week four in Stoke-on-Trent and just six potters remain, all striving to be named top potter. For their main make, judges Kate Malone and Keith Brymer Jones set the potters a monumental task - hand-building a five-foot garden sculpture out of slabs of clay. At stake is a place in the semi-final and their designs this week are more ambitious than ever before. But building big is fraught with danger and even the slightest technical error could cause their sculptures to shatter in the heat of the kiln. For their spot test, the potters must transform an ordinary chimney pot into a decorative strawberry pot by cutting holes in the original and adding pouches to the side. And for the throw down, the potters have just ten minutes on the wheel to throw the widest plate they can. Judge Keith makes plate-throwing look easy, but who can match him for size?

[edit] Part 5

The five remaining potters are faced with their most technically demanding challenge when they have to make a decorative chandelier in bone china. For their Spot Test, steady hands are required when judges Kate Malone and Keith Brymer Jones assess their `banding' skills, and for the Throw Down they have just 15 minutes on the wheel to make the largest closed sphere they can.

[edit] Part 6

The four remaining potters compete in the final with Kate Malone and Keith Brymer Jones presenting them with their most technically demanding challenge in the Main Make when they have to make an original 12-piece tea set out of porcelain. For their Spot Test, they must cut intricate and decorative designs into leather hard porcelain using a technique known as `the devil's work', and for the Throw Down they have just 20 minutes to make three high-shouldered jugs - one of the hardest shapes to throw at the wheel.