Project Development Part Two - Digital Filming & Editing

Once I had my audio recordings ready, I faced a bigger challenge - the visuals. Initially, I had planned to create physical prints to complement my voice over essay. However, after some consideration, I decided to scrap that idea. While I enjoyed the idea of reversing a digital image into an analogue format, I ultimately wasn't satisfied with that approach. As much as it could have made for an intriguing abstract project, this was a deeply personal piece, and I felt I needed to approach it in a more meaningful way.

So instead of doing something overly complicated, I decided to create a video essay. I decided to go ahead and record footage of some of my favourite spots using the in game Gpose feature. This allowed me to adjust the camera, freeze time, and remove my character from the shots, giving me full control over the visuals. The goal was to capture something honest and impactful, something that would truly resonate with the personal nature of this project.

Filming

Setting everything up for the video took many real life hours, far more than I had originally anticipated. The game’s day and night cycle lasts about 70 real world minutes, and waiting for the right lighting, or even the right weather conditions, sometimes felt like trying to catch the perfect sunset in real life. There were moments when I'd find the perfect spot, only for the in game weather to shift to rain or fog, forcing me to wait it out or come back later. It was oddly immersive, almost blurring the line between the game world and reality for me.

In total, I captured 179 recordings, each one showcasing a different zone or a unique visual moment within the game. Some of these were personal favourites, tied to important memories and experiences I had while playing. Others were recommendations from friends, who kindly pointed me toward places they thought captured the magic of Final Fantasy XIV beautifully.

One night in particular, my friend and I stayed up late, just wandering through the world together, re-exploring old zones and discovering hidden corners I had long forgotten about. It was such a nostalgic and heartfelt night, full of laughter and quiet moments of awe, and it really brought back that initial feeling of wonder the game had given me years ago.

I knew I wanted to include one of the iconic "Hear. Feel. Think." cutscenes, and I'm glad it ended up leading off the video, as these words are so emblematic of the FFXIV experience as they reoccur throughout the games narrative. The cutscene itself is mesmerising, drawing viewers in without revealing too much thematically. Once the main footage begins, the shots progress in a deliberate sequence. First, we see three major zones from the Shadowbringers expansion, which was the point when I first started playing the game. We then move on to three shots from my second favourite expansion, Heavensward, followed by selections from Stormblood, Endwalker... etc. I particularly enjoyed arranging the clips into "threes" to help emphasize my statements and the flow of the narrative.

To make the opening feel even more personal and meaningful, I knew I had to tie it to Answers, the song that, for me, feels like the heart and soul of Final Fantasy XIV. Answers isn’t just a theme you hear once and forget, it’s a story on its own. It carries the weight of the game's history, its heartbreaks, and its hope. Hearing it always pulls something deep inside of me, like a reminder of all the journeys, friendships, and changes that this game has been part of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-flsT6LWwY

The phrase "Hear. Feel. Think." is the highlight of this song, and its an important part of the FFXIV journey. It’s something your character hears very early in the story, almost like a quiet calling. It stays with you through every expansion, whispering through some of the game's most emotional moments. It's simple, but somehow it manages to feel so profound, like a reminder to stay open - to listen, to feel, and to really think about the world and the people in it. Including the iconic cutscene where these words are spoken, and tying the emotional atmosphere of Answers into it, felt like a way to honour everything the game has meant to me.

I didn’t just want the video to show beautiful places; I wanted it to feel like something lived in and loved. Including those little echoes, the song, the words, the memories, made it more than just a project. It made it a quiet thank you, stitched together from the moments that carried me through some of the hardest parts of my life.

Effects

After assembling all the elements on the timeline, I then set about editing them to achieve a stylised, almost TV like effect. I looked through multiple tutorials to help me nail down the particular look and feel I was going for. The end result, I believe, is a cohesive and captivating FFXIV video that takes viewers on a carefully curated journey through the game's expansive world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNiBOwxjGYc

The TV effect wasn’t just an aesthetic choice, it also played an important emotional role in the project. By giving the footage a slightly aged, analogue feel, I wanted to tap into a sense of nostalgia, almost as if the memories themselves were being replayed on an old screen. It was important for me to evoke that bittersweet feeling of looking back on a cherished time, where everything feels both vivid and distant at the same time. The slight grain, the soft glow, and the muted colours all worked together to create a dreamlike atmosphere, mirroring the way we often remember the past: imperfect, a little blurred, but full of warmth and meaning.

Captions

Once I finished the video, all that was left to do was the captions—which turned out to be both hellish and, surprisingly, a pretty decent experience in the end. Premiere Pro was having a full meltdown at the time, constantly crashing and forcing me to redo the captions more times than I can even count. It definitely tested my patience, but looking back, it’s kind of funny how chaotic the whole process was.

I used the transcribe function in Premiere to auto generate the captions, which definitely saved me a lot of initial typing. But, of course, that was only the beginning. I then had to spend hours painstakingly going through the transcript, fixing all the mistakes. Some of the things Premiere thought I said were absolutely hilarious, completely random phrases that made no sense whatsoever in the context of my video. Honestly, it gave me a few much needed laughs during an otherwise frustrating process.

Even though it took way longer than I expected, and even though I found minor mistakes after the exhibition had already started (of course!), I'm still glad I pushed through and included captions. It made my work more accessible, and it added an extra layer of polish that made the final video feel more complete. Plus, now I have a newfound appreciation for anyone who does captioning professionally - it's definitely not as easy as it looks!