Wondering what the top student film talents in Hong Kong are up to? Our new blog series Talent Spotlight introduces you to the very best film work by students under the age of 18 in the city, and provides you with first-hand insight on their creative process.

In our first Talent Spotlight feature, we are proud to present a credit sequence by Caryn Niem, one of Babel Film Workshop’s students in our Mentorship program.

A rising senior at Hong Kong International School, Caryn animated an end credit sequence that rivals those by professionals in Hollywood, incorporating local Hong Kong elements in a lively collage of school polaroid photos.

Babel Film Workshop: What was the purpose of this project? 

Caryn Niem: Every school year, each grade in our high school produces their own class video. I got the opportunity to edit this year’s video and this is its credit sequence.

What are you most proud of about it? 

After hours of making the credit sequence, I was very proud to see the final product and how everything came together. It was definitely better than I expected. This was my first time creating a credit sequence with heavy animation. I am also proud of being able to handle all of these files and shapes in my composition as it gets very messy. But I was able to arrange and piece everything together so that it looked nice. This is definitely one of my favorite projects that I’ve done.

How did you get the idea for this credit sequence?

I was inspired by the credit sequence in Spider-Man: Far From Home, where they used creative visuals to attract the viewer, displaying aspects related to the story of the movie. For example, one part had stop-motion animated spider webs, which makes sense since the movie is about Spider-Man. I used this concept and applied it to my own video. Since this video was about my class, I included photos of Hong Kong and my classmates.

Can you describe your process and the skills that went into making this video? 

For my idea planning, I wanted to work with what I already had. Fortunately, my class senators had a Google Drive of polaroid photos they took for our class. I looked at these photos and I thought that they would be perfect for a scrapbook theme inspired by the Spider-Man credits. I made this credit sequence in segments and gathered opinions of my peers, who also contributed to the production of our class film. 

Some of the photos in the sequence include those of MTR train doors, which I personally took on the trains. I also have previous knowledge of Adobe After Effects and animation skills from my video-editing hobby. This was very handy because I didn't need to learn on the spot and it really saved a lot of time.

What challenges did you face while making this piece? 

I didn't really have any problems in terms of skills or idea processing. However, what annoyed me the most was the effects application crashing multiple times. This had to do with the amount of layers and heavy editing in my video, which made the application slow as well. But since I am used to this, I have a habit of saving my work frequently in case of unexpected crashes.

Can you tell us about your next project?

My next project is a short film I produced and directed called "Chips." I am currently in the editing stage of the video and I am very excited to see the final results.

Know of any student work that deserves recognition?

Fill out this nomination form to be considered in our next Talent Spotlight feature!