One subject, sixty seconds, delivered two ways

The situation

Shoot or gather five minutes of real material around one small subject — someone making chai, a market corner, a friend explaining something — and cut it to sixty seconds a stranger watches to the end. Then do the sound pass with your eyes closed, deliver a 16:9 version and a true 9:16 reel with subtitles, and ask one honest viewer the only question that matters: where did you stop watching?

What you'll be able to show

• Organise a project so media never goes offline on a deadline
• Cut ruthlessly: on action, tightened speech, strongest moment first
• Do a sound-only pass: levels, ducked music, room tone, one J-cut
• Deliver for a screen and for a phone, and test on a phone

What you need

• CapCut Desktop or DaVinci Resolve (free)
• A phone camera and five minutes of your own footage
• One honest friend with a phone

Tasks

1. 1Project structure and the offline drill
   Create folders footage / audio / exports, import your clips, and export a rough 30-second sequence. Then move one source file out of the folder and reopen the project: meet media offline on purpose, and fix it by relinking.
   A correct result: A structured project, a rough export, and the offline problem met and fixed.
2. 2The sixty-second cut
   From five minutes, cut sixty seconds: ruthless selection, cuts on action, speech tightened, rhythm varied, strongest moment first. Watch it through, note where attention dips, fix only those, watch again.
   A correct result: A 60-second cut and your attention-dip notes with what you changed.
3. 3The sound pass
   First listen with your eyes off the screen. Even out speech levels across clips, add music that sits low and ducks under speech, fill dead silence with room tone, and try one J-cut. Export and play it next to the pre-sound version on phone speakers.
   A correct result: A sound-passed export and one sentence on what the phone-speaker comparison told you.
4. 4The 16:9 delivery
   Correct and match colour across clips, add a name title, export the 16:9 version at a sensible size.
   A correct result: A 16:9 file with matched colour and a title.
5. 5The 9:16 reel
   Re-edit as a true vertical reel: reframed not cropped, auto-subtitled then proofread, strongest moment in the first three seconds, readable muted on a phone.
   A correct result: A 9:16 file whose subtitles read correctly with the sound off.
6. 6The only question
   Send both versions to one honest friend and ask only: where did you stop watching? Record the timestamp they give and what was on screen there.
   A correct result: Two timestamps (or 'the end') and what was on screen at each.

What to hand in

The two exported files (or links), the attention-dip notes, the sound-pass sentence, and the friend's two answers.

How it is marked