Life is like a movie.
I enjoy videotaping my daily life, making films with those clips, and showing it to my family & friends. Making films is fun, but more importantly, it’s an artistic way to tell the story and represent our memories, which gives more empathy to audiences.
Besides films, I also create videos for my digital media & design projects, special events, marketing, or something just for fun, like commercial parodies.
You can find my works on my YouTube Channel.
Works that I’m proud of.
Chat With Myself From A Year Ago
2nd-Place Award, Film Wars Competition by Microsoft Teams & Filmmaker Club @ GT
It’s been a year since the pandemic. Traveling through time and space, I had a conversation with myself from a year ago on MS Teams.
A Tribute to Technology
— sunhacks opening ceremony
A 4-minute video that shows respect to the tech companies, a tribute to the development and revolution in the tech industry, and a call-to-action for students to join the world of technology and learn development, design, and entrepreneurship.
Apple’s 2019 in :50
Take a recap of Apple’s products released in 2019, in Apple’s style. Inspired by Apple’s previous promo videos & commercials, this is a piece of work with animation that matches the song’s rhythm. Just 50 seconds, so don’t blink!
I’ve also made a parody of Apple’s “This is Big” video for the September 2018 event, with a similar style of animation. This turns out to be the most played video on my channel that gained 245K views and 7.4K likes as of late June ’21.
Introducing Marine World
This is a full introduction video of my interactive media project, Marine World. Inspired by Apple’s product promo videos, I made this video in a similar style with clear narrations, special choices of music, and transitions.
Curious? Learn more about the Marine World project.
Record of the Panda Expedition
Giant Panda. Expedition. Human & Nature. This is a reality-show vlog documentary series about my volunteering experience in a Giant Panda expedition program. We got a chance to take a look at the panda’s habitat in person, study the panda’s lifestyle and how to protect them, and even have close contact with cute baby pandas. More importantly, we will never forget these wonderful times we spent together as a team, and we have established a long-lasted friendship.
This show will have an estimated five episodes. Episode 2 is now available in English Closed Caption (CC). Please stay tuned for the new episodes and English captions.
StreamWork Promo Video
Scripted, sketched, and directed by me, this is the promotion video for my friend’s ed-tech startup, StreamWork. It was used for YouTube ads and social media posts to promote our business.
The final editing was done by a freelancer that I was directly communicating with. As a director of this video, I was responsible for giving guidance to the freelancer on the use of font, music, and style of artwork.
SWHacks 2017 Marketing & Open Ceremony Videos
SWHacks is a hackathon I participated in organizing, specifically in the role of brand & web designer and video producer.
For pre-event marketing, we made an interview video in a Q&A style. It has a piece of percussive background music with special editing and the use of typography and animation.
For the opening ceremony, I thought that playing a cool countdown video right before the ceremony to warm up and rock the whole room should be a cool idea.
Big Data Trunk Promo Video
Scripted and edited the marketing video for Big Data Trunk, a corporate training firm.
Since February 2023, I’ve been working at ZillionX as a Product & Marketing Management Intern. Big Data Trunk is one of their businesses. This internship is also part of my study for the UCSC Silicon Valley Extension’s Project Management & Marketing Management certificate program.
Kinetic Typography Lyrics Animation – “Copycat” by 20syl ft. Fashawn
This is my first attempt to make a lyric video with kinetic typography animation. Guess what? I didn’t even use After Effects. I used mostly Keynote for the animation, plus a bit of Final Cut Pro for the rhythm match, some transitions, and special effects. Oh, and graphic design skills are definitely required.
How is video related to my profession?
As a Digital Media MS graduate, my future work will be related to UI/UX, Visual, Front-End, or Product Design. I’ll keep making videos as a hobby while also utilizing this skill for my professional work. Plus, I expect to expand my topic for video content about travel, lifestyle, and more. Finally, I always look for opportunities to get involved in creative communities in film and video production and even crossover cooperation in the world of digital media.
Tools I use.
- Final Cut Pro, formerly Final Cut Pro X, developed by Apple. This is the primary non-linear editing software I have used all the time since it was launched on June 21, 2011 (6 days since I graduated from middle school and having the yet longest summer for me to explore my hobbies and enhance my skills).
- Prior to 2012, I used Windows Movie Maker, Corel VideoStudio, and iMovie as a starter for learning video editing.
- After Effects, developed by Adobe. As of 2021, I have basic knowledge of making animations using keyframes (available in Final Cut Pro as well), which is possible for me to make Apple-style text animations. My next goal is to make next-level motion graphics with special effects and utilize my graphic design skills with various typefaces and color schemes. I got some ideas, so please stay tuned. Hint: it will be something about music.
- iPhone (currently: iPhone 14 Pro Max). As of now, this is my primary video camera because it allows me to record 4K 60fps videos in HDR, with the advantage of its triple-camera system.
- Prior to 2015, I used HD camcorders, including Samsung R10 and JVC R10 for 1080P 50fps footage, and my iPhones in 720P/1080P/4K 30/60fps.
Ted (Junshu) Liu 