1984 is the poster child for dystopian futures and a warning for our society. But what is the warning? Looking at modern-day china, we get a clearer picture.

Our goal was to create a 5-minute film tying our chosen dystopian book and a real-life scenario.

I decided to read 1984 by George Orwell. Besides the numerous positive reviews of George Orwell’s 1984, I am drawn toward futuristic dystopias. To have a book written in 1939 and still be used in schools across the globe, it must still have importance in today’s society. Orwell’s envisioning of the future warns our society not to go down that route.

The Party does this through several methods, but the most important one is controlling the people. They have created a network of surveillance cameras and a social credit system. They need to control everything; if the people are free, then the Party cannot control them.

Fitting all of the information on the topic into a video would be impossible, so we would have to narrow it to a specific aspect. I chose to focus on surveillance and tactics to hold their citizens accountable.

Education videos, at their heart, are boring, so I added some flair to mine to make it entertaining. In other words, it was “Hollywoodized” by fast cuts, sounds and flashy transitions. I incorporated myself to break up the evidence with the context of the situation. It makes it more personal and impactful. Creating the video in the week required problem-solving and quick editing.

It was a tight-knit formula. Write a script, and record a VoiceOver to plan shots, film, and edit together. I made a whole setup, ripping apart my living room to place a desk in the middle of the room. I used a 55mm lens to get the blurred background and focus the attention on myself. I used premiere pro, editing on multiple levels and mastered the audio to match the changing clips. The little touches, such as editing my voice in audacity and colour grading, made my video engaging. The video I produced is something I am genuinely proud of within this short time and the depth of research I put in.