A Creator at Heart
Digital content director Valentina Vee channels her creativity with help from Adobe Premiere Pro CC.
Image courtesy of Valentina Vee, Anna Tenne photographer.
When we last spoke with director, cinematographer, photographer, and editor Valentina Vee, she was fully immersed in a corporate job, creating content for Aputure’s social media channels.
But a lot has changed in a year.
After deciding corporate life wasn’t for her, Valentina decided to freelance again on a full-time basis. And in this new media landscape, she’s had no shortage of work.
“There are lots of opportunities to travel and shoot, and I didn’t want to limit myself,” she says. “It’s been insane ever since.”
Valentina Vee and Benjamin Von Wong shooting on top of a volcano. Photo by Paulo Mendes.
She is a keen user of Adobe Premiere Pro CC for editing, and uses Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator on an almost-daily basis. But her workflow varies depending on the assignment. “Whether you’re doing commercial work or you’re doing stuff for online, you have to consider the different platforms where the content that you’re creating could show up,” says Valentina. “This impacts how you approach those different media platforms.”
Valentina recently went to the Philippines with photographer Benjamin Von Wong—a colleague she’s collaborated with in the past—to shoot a cause-based campaign for Nike. The duo also shot a project with Dell to raise awareness for the company’s e-waste recycling campaign.
The Dell project involved taking ten days of footage from six cameras, organizing it, and creating color coded string outs for each day, as well as one that covered the project as a whole. “I used Premiere Pro to build four individual videos, one cinematic video and three teasers,” says Valentina.
She’s also recently shot three new product videos for the cosmetic company Morphe. The client wanted very specific graphics for the lower-third.
“I used Adobe After Effects to create motion graphic templates for myself so I wouldn’t have to keep dropping in and re-exporting alpha channels and transparency graphics into Premiere Pro every time they wanted to change copy in the lower-thirds,” explains Valentina. “I took a PDF file of the lower-third design that the graphics team put together, animated it, and dropped it into Premiere Pro. I could then just plug in changes with a couple of clicks.”
Valentina is also using Premiere Pro to create a travel reel that she can add to her portfolio, using footage from a two-week trip to Europe. “Since I shot the footage, I already know what it looks like,” she says. “Now it’s just a matter of putting markers on the tracks that I want in Premiere Pro, and determining which sections to hyperlapse.”
Travel is one of the key criteria Valentina now uses to help her determine which projects to take on. “Before I die I want to see as much of the world as possible so if there’s a travel involved in a job, I will take it,” she says. “I think traveling, meeting new people, and learning about new cultures makes me a more well-rounded person.”
She’s also committed to helping out friends—even if the work isn’t something she’d normally consider. “I don’t normally do narratives, but my friend and actress Bri Giger wrote a really poignant script,” says Valentina. “She asked me to shoot a five-minute short film and I didn’t hesitate to do it.”
Behind the scenes shots of Valentina Vee shooting Bri Giger’s film, directed by Ambika Leigh. Photo by Giny Daniel.
And then there are the opportunities she simply can’t turn down—like working as a gaffer on a Zumba instructional video with Meghan Trainor, which was shot and directed by Tim Milgram. “Brand-name projects like this help legitimize my work as a creator, so that I can take on more cause-based work,” she explains. “For me, it’s all about using my skills to make the world a better place.”
Valentina also hopes to inspire the next generation of female filmmakers. She will be a panelist on the Science of Sizzle: Social Videos, Promos, & Sizzle Reels panel during the third annual #GalsNGear event at NAB 2018.
“When people think about digital creators, they only really think about those influencers who have millions of views on YouTube,” says Valentina. “But there’s a whole industry behind the scenes. I would like to influence at least one girl to pick up a camera and start shooting.”
To hear Valentina speak at the “Science of Sizzle: Social Videos, Promos, & Sizzle Reels” at NAB 2018 on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, register here.
Valentina Vee is participating in the Adobe roundtable “Getting Seen Above the Noise: The Impact of Video on Social Media” on Sunday, April 8 at 4:00 PM, which will be streamed live on Adobe Premiere Pro Facebook page.
She will also be presenting in the Adobe booth SL4610 at NAB 2018 on Monday, April 9th at 1:00 PM. Her presentation on Tuesday, April 10th at 10:30 AM will be live streamed on the Adobe Premiere Pro Facebook page (@premierepro).
To view and download the free motion graphics templates Valentina created for Adobe Stock, click here.