Rising Against The current

Short Form Documentary

About the project

Project Type: Short Form Documentary
Role: Visual Journalist, Video Editor
Language: English
Completion Date: 2025

About:
Rising Against The Current is a desktop documentary that uses elements of artificial intelligence to tell the story of Heinrich Emmanuel Galabay, 20, a youth proteser from Isabela, a province in Cagayan Valley, Philippines, which floods regularly. It follows his efforts as President of the Supreme Student Council at his school, Isabela State University Echague, as he organises the school’s first protest in decades against the widespread corruption in flood control projects.

Creative Problem:
As part of a university course (Advanced Photojournalism), we were tasked to cover a newsworthy story that was outside of Singapore. The challenge was to use technological tools like AI and video conferencing communication platforms to simulate how visual journalists had to 'work from home' during the pandemic. With a team of 2 other journalists, we created a 4 mins documentary that covered the timely 2025 Philippines Gen Z protests.

Solution:
While this was a difficult and uncomfortable assignment, our team was inspired by investigative documentaries and explainer documentaries that relied heavily on robust research and animated sequences to tell stories across boarders.

Process & Development

We were inspired by explainer documentaries like VOX, investigative documentaries like New York Times, Desktop documentaries and genre bending films like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Into The Spider Verse.

Interested to know more about why and how we used Artificial Intelligence in journalism? Read more here.

credits

Journalists: Savanna Tai, Christine Lim, Gwenneth Teo

Ai Artist: Savanna Tai

Researcher: Gwenneth Teo

Video Editor: Christine Lim

Special Thanks:

Heinrich Emmanuel Galabay

In collaboration with:

Nanyang Technological University Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI)