A TRIDENT High School student’s video editing skills are earning him a rising following on social media.

One of Kaelem McCormick-Lavatai’s basketball videos has been viewed more than 4 million times, much to his surprise.

The year 10 student uses existing film clips from the world of basketball and other sports, cuts and sequences them together, often adding special effects and music to his creations.

One afternoon, while looking at basketball videos on the net, he came across a clip of what he describes as a “mascot clowning a dude in the crowd”.

“I thought, I’ll take that video and turn it into something,” he said.

During that night, Kaelem woke several times to check his notifications and could see the watch count on TikTok increasing drastically.

“It was really crazy to see,” he said.

“It took a bit of time, a day or two, for it to get four million views.”

He started video editing four years ago, using the only tool he had – an old phone. With a long-time interest in basketball, he soon realised he could edit video clips himself.

He started using CapCut, free on the app store, and over time, as he developed his skills, Kaelem started using other software, including Videostar and Alight Motion.

After a while, he started advertising his skills on the freelancing work website Fiverr and received some work from it.

“Editing videos really comes down to mastering the finer details,” he said.

“It’s not just about putting clips together – but it’s about ensuring you can export at a high quality, making sure sound effects and quality is good, adding eye-catching effects and making sure everything flows smoothly.”

He feels fortunate to have been able to combine his two passions – basketball and video editing.

“Over time, my editing skills have got better,” Kaelem said.

“The late nights and countless hours spent editing will be worth it one day.”

Kaelem plans to continue editing basketball videos and to set up a website where he can sell basketball products.

Readers can find Kaelem’s work at the “icyhoopz” TikTok account.