A human eye whose pupil opens onto a sunrise over a lake

← All workSelf-initiated concept

Film — 2026

EARTH

Year: 2026
Type: Self-initiated concept
Disciplines: Video editing, Colour grading, Motion design, Sound design
Tools: Remotion, FFmpeg

Overview

A 53-second nature short about the act of looking, built from 25 unrelated stock clips through editing, colour, typography and sound.

A 53-second nature film about the act of looking, edited from stock footage, with colour grading, title design, motion graphics and original sound design.

This is a self-initiated concept — not commissioned work.

The film

A human eye whose pupil opens onto a sunrise over a lake — Plays in YouTube’s privacy-enhanced player. Loading it connects to YouTube (Google).

Concept

“Some places only exist when we look at them.” The film opens on a human eye: the pupil opens and becomes the sun, a match cut on shape and position that sets up the whole piece.

Macro shot of a brown human eye — Fig. 01.1 — The eye

Sunrise over a lake with islands, from above — Fig. 01.2 — …opens onto the sun

Three acts, cut to the music

Light: slow dissolves while the score builds. Motion: from the drop, every cut lands on the beat, with punch-ins, a zoom-through and a whip pan. Stillness: people stop and look, and the last shot is seen through a photographer’s viewfinder.

Sunrise over islands — Fig. 01.3 — I · Light

A runner on a forest boardwalk, seen from ground level — Fig. 01.4 — II · Motion

A woman in a winter coat looking over a river — Fig. 01.5 — III · Stillness

Diving into the letters

A knockout title: the forest plays inside the word EARTH. On the music’s drop the camera dives through the stem of the T and the forest fills the frame, so the title becomes the cut into act II.

The first letters of EARTH rising out of black — Fig. 01.6 — 01 · The letters rise

The word EARTH with forest footage inside the letters — Fig. 01.7 — 02 · The title holds

Extreme zoom into the stem of the letter T — Fig. 01.8 — 03 · The dive

Aerial view of a pine forest — Fig. 01.9 — 04 · Act II, on the beat

Colour

Each shot is balanced first, then one tone curve runs across the film: a gentle S-curve, teal-tinted shadows and warm highlights. Bright skies get a graduated filter so the sun never clips.

Canyon with a river, original footage — Fig. 01.10 — Original

The same canyon after colour grading — Fig. 01.11 — Graded

Green fields and a road with a motorbike, original footage — Fig. 01.12 — Original

The same fields after colour grading — Fig. 01.13 — Graded

Graphics that belong to the story

Chapter cards set the rhythm of the three acts. In the last shot, a viewfinder turns the frame into the photographer’s point of view: autofocus hunts and locks onto the sun, and the shutter fires on the beat.

Camera viewfinder over a sea of clouds, with the autofocus box locked on the sun — Fig. 01.14 — The viewfinder

Pine forest with the chapter card II Motion — Fig. 01.15 — Chapter card

End title EARTH over a sea of clouds at sunset — Fig. 01.16 — End title

Sound

Every effect was synthesised from noise and oscillators, with no sound libraries: wind, risers, a sub impact, whooshes, the runner’s pass-by, the autofocus beep and the shutter. They are placed frame by frame against the score and mixed to −14 LUFS.

Waveform of the final mix with the sound effects marked: swell, riser, impact, pass-by, whoosh, whip, autofocus beep and shutter — Fig. 01.17 — Final mix and sound events

The cut

Scrub through the edit. Each clip is a shot from the film; the monitor shows what sits under the playhead.

Macro of a human eye

Shot 01/14 — Eye00:00:00:00

Use the arrow keys to move between clips.

Clip lengths are illustrative until the edit file is supplied.

View on Behance ↗behance.net/goncalosilva26

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