Lights cast a cool glow around the room. Homework lies in a corner, forgotten. Hours of footage, perfect framing and music all come together as sophomore Jiwon Kim stares intently at his screen, carefully assembling a new cinematographic edit for his TikTok account @dotjkae.
Kim began his journey in filmmaking at 5 years old. Inspired by popular YouTubers such as Dude Perfect and Ryan Higa, he decided to try his own hand at filmmaking and editing.
“When I was five, I just wanted to be famous,” Kim said.
By age 10, he had outgrown iMovie’s simplistic format and began editing his content with more sophistication, splicing and transitioning clips with updated editing software such as Final Cut Pro to upload a more relevant genre of videos: gaming edits. In sixth grade, his channel blew up. In shock, he repeatedly refreshed his account page as views climbed. The numbers on his videos had skyrocketed — 1,000, then 10,000 then 50,000. Not much later, he had crossed the 100,000 mark, and within a few days, his top video hit one million views.
“The channel was pretty successful,” Kim said. “I had like 35,000 subscribers at the time. I’ve noticed that consistency is key; no matter how good your video is, if it’s not consistent, it’s not going to do well.”
Kim continued to hone his abilities in content creation as he grew. Upon entering high school, Kim was introduced to a wide variety of opportunities to foster his talent. He joined Film and Photo Society his freshman year, and eager to showcase his talent and gain visibility, he signed up to create the homecoming hype video. To his surprise, he was selected.
“I made the video, and though I thought it wasn’t that good, people told me it was,” Kim said. “That motivated me to keep going, and I bought my own camera.”
Throughout the homecoming video filming process, he worked with senior Colin Chow, who encouraged and supported his journey. The two later collaborated on an edit of their day-to-day life, and more recently, a viral travel edit of Shibuya Station.
“Jiwon’s very driven, hard-working and cares about what he does,” Chow said. “I want to see him chase opportunities more. I hope he never gets content, never gets comfortable and keeps evolving this Lynbrook wheel of filmmakers. There aren’t many of us, but the few I can name, we’re all very different. So I hope he keeps changing the narrative, and maybe one day there’ll be more of us.”
With growing experience in filmmaking and editing videos, Kim applied to ASB Tech in sophomore year. Within the commission, he has publicized and documented major school events, such as the Fantastics Intra-District Council Rally. However, filmmaking on a larger scale has posed its own challenge: time.
“Sometimes I have a bunch of homework, and I get carried away with editing,” Kim said. “I just lose track of time because editing and managing freelance video takes a long time.”
Although it often takes away from other schoolwork, once he starts editing, Kim finds himself spending four to five hours a day simply working through the process. Generally, his first step is to set the tone.
“Music is the thing that inspires me the most,” Kim said. “That’s one of my most important steps because everything builds off the music and sound.”
Once a song has been chosen, he sorts through all of his footage. Oftentimes, he doesn’t have an idea of how the final clip will look until it has all been done. He takes the time to place each clip in the order and adds effects once everything else has been completed.
With a growing portfolio, Kim realized that he could reach his goal of fame by simply diversifying his platform presence. He began by publishing an edit of the student-vs-teacher basketball game on Instagram. When he realized that solely his followers were interacting with his posts, he decided to repost his content on TikTok in hopes of reaching a different and broader audience. Initially, he wasn’t focused on gaining viewership; he simply wanted to put himself out there. However, as his content gained traction, Kim was excited to see two videos hit over 100,000 views.
“When my TikTok first blew up, I felt like I was finally getting the recognition I deserved,” Kim said. “It might sound a bit egotistical, but it just felt really good that finally, it was doing better than I expected it to. Becoming viral wasn’t my main objective, but gaining views was definitely a bonus.”
Every video, Kim either adds something new or changes something he didn’t like about the previous one. As he continues to experiment with his style, he embraces the flexibility of filmmaking and the growth it brings.
“In filmmaking, there’s no actual rights or wrongs,” Kim said. “It’s all about artistic belief and what you want to do. It’s creativity. Whatever you want to make, you make. There are some soft rules, but rules are meant to be broken; you need to step outside your comfort zone in order to make something good.”
