First-year BFA Film student Sara Hernandez Vallejo created this moving video as part of her first film class at the University of Central Florida's School of Visual Arts & Design.
As a full-time associate instructor and Graduate Scholar in the film production program at the University of Central Florida's School of Visual Arts & Design, Orlando, Lisa Peterson has the privilege and challenge of leading the very first film class that incoming Film BFA students experience.
Peterson is an accomplished film professional with credits as an associate producer, line producer, production supervisor, and production manager on numerous Hollywood productions. She also completed facilitator training with StoryCenter, which has led her to, always look for ways to integrate digital storytelling into my curriculum. (Check out our story with StoryCenter founder Joe Lambert).
Peterson explains, I have found great success with making the first three class sessions in this course about creating digital stories. This involves their writing narration, hearing feedback through the use of a story circle, and using WeVideo to put it all together. In the fourth class session we screen everyone's work.
One student's recent work struck a particular chord for Peterson. First-year BFA Film student Sara Hernandez Vallejo admits that at first, I struggled to find a story good enough that my professor and peers would understand who I am or what shaped me.
Ultimately it was headline news that provided Sara's inspiration. President Trump announced his decision to put an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This would cost me everything. With DACA, I am able to work, attend school, and feel like a productive member of the society I grew up in.
Sara describes herself as, a DACA-mented student from Florida. Born in the city of Salamanca in Guanajuato, Mexico, she and her family relocated to the Southwest region of Florida in 1997, when Sara was three years old.
Now aged 23, Sara explains the challenge she faced with her project. It was difficult not to include every detail of all those years past. Aiming for a video less than 3 minutes challenged me to create a concise recollection of what I've faced and the feelings I have not always been able to share. I wrote and rewrote to satisfy myself as a writer, then practiced saying it out loud until the words felt comfortable and met the timing. I had to cut long descriptions and metaphors, but left the meat of the story.
She began with the audio. I felt ready to express myself, but was not prepared to find that my voice broke and tears began to fall as I tried to say the first sentence into the microphone. Two tries later, I had teary eyes and two less-than-perfect recordings. I had to continuously listen to myself in order to extract the parts that were most understandable. I also decided to add a background ambiance track instead of music.
Sara then considered the visuals. I called my mom and asked her to send me pictures of my childhood. Unfortunately, there weren't many. I chose the only baby pictures of me in Mexico in my possession, childhood photos of my family and I, and pictures of my high school graduation that would coincide with the timeline in my digital story. I also opted for some stock photos to help my audience get a sense of where I had been and create visual metaphors to replace some of my written descriptions such as barbed wires and fences. I enhanced two of my own photos with text, hoping to reiterate my points about forced and personal identities.
Sara says the project was an opportunity to, express the alienation and separation I have felt towards my nationality and living in the US, as well the courage I gained in stepping out of the shadows. It wasn't a story meant to gain pity, but rather understanding of the life I live and difficulties I face.
The amount of fine-tuning, adjusting, and just listening to my instincts was essential in making this piece. I was also very happy to have received the feedback from Professor Peterson and my peers that I did. I was humbled by how responsive and empathetic they were to the story I had to tell.
Peterson says, Sara's piece is exceptionally artful in its pacing of voice and images, selection of images, and the authenticity of her voice, meaning her truthfulness and sincerity in her writing, recording and images. It was obviously from the heart and it moves me every time I see it. I am so glad that she is willing to share it beyond the classroom and I am very interested in seeing where she goes as a filmmaker and a writer, since her courage and fearlessness in telling the hard story is rare.
Peterson's curriculum reflects the positive impact digital storytelling can have on students of all ages. As she explains, In the classes in which I have assigned the creation of a digital story, students have achieved several goals. They bond together as a group through the sharing of intimate stories and feelings. They are better listeners and more attentive for the rest of the semester. They get a basic understanding of narrative and the potential of intentional combinations of sound and image. It also builds confidence in their ability to tell a story with simple tools and it reinforces three act structure and narrative awareness. And maybe best of all, they get a sense of the universality of the human experience.
Search
Video tutorials, lessons and tips
Read More
Deeper learning demands deeper justification from edtech tools
WeVideo now works with your school's LMS
Authenticity powers remarkable student digital story
What are educators saying about the impact of video creation in their classrooms?
A t-shirt for your thoughts
Follow WeVideo
--
Follow @wevideo
--
lang: en_US
--
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
20/10/2025
Inside TAMS: How Time-Addressable Media Stores could redefine sports workflows By Paul Markham
Friday, October 17, 2025 - 08:57
Print This Story
A penalty...
20/10/2025
Transformational production: Inside TVN's remote production push for the DFL...
20/10/2025
How NBC Sports Transitioned Stamford Facility to One Format: 1080p HDRMulti-year plan harmonizes workflows, simplifies operationsBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial ...
20/10/2025
NBA on NBC' Studio Production Team Is Ready for Tip-Off With Coast-to-Coast...
20/10/2025
Under pressure: TVN CEO Markus Osthaus considers the German sports broadcasting ...
20/10/2025
(L-R) Maria Dizzia, Carmen Emmi, and Russell Tovey attend the Plainclothes pre...
20/10/2025
In March, we launched Concerts Near You to help listeners find concerts from their favorite artists. Since then, more than 3 million people have used it to disc...
20/10/2025
Em diversas cidades do Brasil, um movimento tem se fortalecido para celebrar o poder, a beleza e a profundidade da criatividade negra. O Dia AMPLIFIKA, agora em...
20/10/2025
In cities across Brazil, a movement is growing that celebrates the power, beauty, and depth of Black creativity. AMPLIFIKA Day, now in its fifth edition, return...
20/10/2025
Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft rendering...
20/10/2025
DENVER and MUNICH Imagine Communications today announced its plans to acquire Pixel Power Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz. Financial terms of...
20/10/2025
LOS ANGELES G Morgan has joined Globecast, a provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, as executive vice president of sales, Globecast Am...
20/10/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. Heartland Video Systems and Zixi have partnered to enable broadcast-quality live video delivery over any IP network....
20/10/2025
A. R. Rahman on Facing Fear and Finding the Divine In an interview with Berklee President Jim Lucchese, the Oscar-winning composer reflects on how courage and...
20/10/2025
Monday 20 October 2025
To view this content, please enable our use of cookies. ...
20/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz transfers Pixel Power to Imagine Communications Companies work collaboratively to ensure continuity and ongoing support for existing customers...
20/10/2025
RT 's Prime Time is set to host the final Presidential Election Debate this Tuesday night, October 21, providing an opportunity to hear directly from Irelan...
20/10/2025
NVIDIA and Google Cloud are expanding access to accelerated computing to transform the full spectrum of enterprise workloads, from visual computing to agentic a...
19/10/2025
Back to All News
Sins of Kujo' Comes to Life in New Live-Action Series Set for Spring 2026
Entertainment
19 October 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to cl...
18/10/2025
New England Sports Network (NESN) has chosen Harmonic, working with Astound Business Solutions, as its enterprise technology partner to transform primary distri...
18/10/2025
NEW ORLEANS, La. In the run-up to the start of the NBA season, WVUE-TV and Gray Local Media have announced a deal with DirecTV that will greatly expand access t...
18/10/2025
Berklee Celebrates 40 Years of the Fall Together Concert Faculty composers Bob Pilkington and Greg Hopkins are among the featured artists for this year's ...
17/10/2025
NEP Group Receives New Equity Investment From 26North Partners LP, Co-InvestorsCarlyle remains the largest shareholder as the company prepares for the futureBy ...
17/10/2025
Apple Lands Five-Year Deal for F1 Distribution in the U.S.Besides airing on Apple TV, the sport will be amplified on other Apple servicesBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Ed...
17/10/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Marshall Electronics' Bernie Keach on the Future of PTZ Camera...
17/10/2025
L2 Productions' REMI Facility in Austin Can Produce Content From AnywhereMusic festivals, sports events are produced via flypacks and remote control roomsBy...
17/10/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
17/10/2025
(L-R) Christopher Meyer, Addison Timlin, Cooper Raiff, Lili Reinhart, Alyah Chan...
17/10/2025
M sica e arte se uniram em uma noite especial na semana passada na ZIV Gallery, ...
17/10/2025
Music and art came together for one special night last week at ZIV Gallery, an i...
17/10/2025
Spotify and FC Barcelona are extending our partnership through 2030, continuing a collaboration that's redefining how fans, players, and artists connect. Th...
17/10/2025
MURRIETA, Calif. The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC) has deployed DigitalGlue's creative.space storage platform to streamline video production by centrali...
17/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. Football continued to cement its reputation as a bulwark of TV advertising in Q3 2025 with new data from iSpot that showed both the NFL and coll...
17/10/2025
The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC), the premier competitive saltwater fishing series, has transformed its production workflow by adopting creative.space, the...
17/10/2025
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning multi-camera video productions and remote contribution solutions, announces the release of StudioPro Version 4, ...
17/10/2025
Although the annual Grammy Awards celebration is best known for recognizing achievements in the recording industry, the show often proves a visual spectacle as ...
17/10/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leading provider of software-defined data storage and data services, has promoted Alex Dunfey to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from his for...
17/10/2025
The University of Arizona (UofA) has significantly upgraded its broadcast communication infrastructure with the integration of Riedel Communications' advanc...
17/10/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that New England Sports Network (NESN), owned by Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, has selected Harmonic as its en...
17/10/2025
Austin PBS has recently upgraded its facility-wide communications infrastructure, deploying Clear-Com 's Eclipse HX, FreeSpeak II beltpacks, and V-Series ...
17/10/2025
ZEISS announces an open call for the closed BETA testing phase of CinCraft Virtual Lens Technology, the innovative digital tool that brings authentic lens chara...
17/10/2025
Situated in the town of Kokkola, Centria University of Applied Sciences offers higher education across five core fields: engineering, business, social and healt...
17/10/2025
Public information channel in Georgia, USA, to implement a powerful, simple, and cost-effective playout automation platform.
Pebble, the leading automation, co...
17/10/2025
HBO Max is reporting that it has launched in 15 new markets, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Macau, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ukraine, boosting the streaming serv...
17/10/2025
Netflix said it will make a major push into video podcasts, inking a wide-ranging deal with Spotify through which it will offer 16 podcasts in the U.S. starting...
17/10/2025
Lexington, Ky. As part of a push to highlight its advanced advertising capabilities, Viamedia has launched a new AI-powered ad tech platform and officially rebr...
17/10/2025
NEW YORK QuickLink has announced the release of StudioPro Version 4, which the company is calling the most significant upgrade yet to its flagship video product...
17/10/2025
NEW YORK and CUPERTINO, Calif. Apple and NBCUniversal said they will sell Apple TV and Peacock streaming bundles to U.S. subscribers starting Oct. 20....
First-year BFA Film student Sara Hernandez Vallejo created this moving video as part of her first film class at the University of Central Florida's School of Visual Arts & Design.
