Tag Archives: Earth

A 5 minute environmental ‘film’ I created using Final Cut Pro.

At the end of the extracurricular course I’m taking, we had to create a short film to demonstrate our fluency with Final Cut Pro – an industry standard in video editing.

Some of the class were film and art majors, who had previous experience working with film cameras and other fancy equipment. Others simply used camcorders and HD recording devices like an iPhone. The class short films ranged from documenting your daily awakening routine to creating a mini documentary on Jewish traditions.

The goal was to obtain lots of video/audio footage and ‘cut’ it all together to make a comprehensible film.

My initial plan of documenting a topic failed due to the sources back-pedaling. This led to a change of direction.

I love the power of films, notably documentaries like those of National Geographic. The ability to bring remote parts of our planet, cultures, and the habitat of other species to our home color tv is simply a delectable experience. The manner in which it is presented: the stunning music, the breathless visuals, the narrator who enthralls you with their passion – immerses you in deep thinking that may lead to life altering perspectives.

So I attempted to create a similar feel for my final project. I took my media discs of the films Baraka, Home, and Earth, converted them to digital files, and painstakingly cut specific scenes from each one. I like the stunning scores from John Murphy’s Sunshine and Audiomachine’s Equinox, so they were spliced up and incorporated into the project.

I did my best to follow the storyboard process that was simmering in my mind, and sequenced them all together like some sort of mini visual story. The process of syncing certain sequences to certain parts of the musical scores proved challenging. Select quotes regarding our environment were added as a mental narration. Effects such as transitions, moving text, key framing, audio enhancements, timing, and others were the final touches. The following 5 minute video is the result (choose HD viewing for maximum experience):