Save the Night: The empowering story of champion boxer Joana Pastrana

（Shot on Find X5 Pro）

What does the night mean to you? To some it is a time to unwind with friends after work. To others it is when quiet drapes over busy city streets, bringing calm and relaxation.

For Joana Pastrana the night means something else entirely. It is a window in which dreams are realized, and true empowerment is within reach.

Joana Pastrana is a world-class boxer who held the International Boxing Federation’s mini-flyweight title for three years in a row. Her achievements were hard won through training and self-betterment.

（Shot on Find X5 Pro）

She represents the spirit of OPPO’s Save the Night initiative, which celebrates the empowerment of women who find they have to push harder and train longer in a world that can seem out of sync with their ambitions.

A story of empowerment

Her story is told in a short film made in association with OPPO, directed by Laura Sisteró, and shot in part using the new OPPO Find X5 Pro. It shows us what the night can be, if we choose to make it so:

“In the dark, I just saw an opportunity. While everyone went back home to rest I was ready to chase my dream,” says Pastrana. For her, the night was a time to work, and push harder.

Competing in a male-dominated sport only made her self-empowerment more crucial.  “I didn’t see many women up there,” says Pastrana.

“I had to become my own role model. And from then on, I never stopped. I trained harder and harder. This was the only way to achieve my goals”, she says.

After three years competing in the amateur circuit, Pastrana made her professional debut in 2016. At the time she was the only professional boxer in Madrid. By the middle of 2018 she was already a global champion in her weight class.

Pastrana is an inspirational figure, an example of what self-motivation through empowerment can bring. Of course, there is only one Joana Pastrana. Few could, or would even want to, box at a professional level. However, her words can inspire us all.

（Shot on Find X5 Pro）

She says, “the night can be the time to dream wide awake.” It’s a reminder that while our dreams and aspirations may seem remote, they may be within reach. This is a sentiment worth celebrating.

Behind the camera

The aim of OPPO’s Joana Pastrana short film was to offer a view into her world. We see her walking through the empty city streets at night towards her boxing gym, capturing images with the OPPO Find X5 Pro.

She straps up her wrists and takes to the ring to train. As she sits at the end of the session, exhausted, Pastrana visualizes the match to come, when all her efforts will be put to the test.

The film-making challenge was to capture the emotional and physical investment here in a 90-second format. Director Laura Sisteró’s tools were the industry standard Arri Alexa camera and a less likely partner, the OPPO Find X5 Pro.

Why the OPPO Find X5 Pro? This phone can be your night companion. Its camera is optimized to produce stunning results, for stills or video, even in the most challenging lighting.

An OPPO Find X5 Pro will record your night-time memories, your challenges, victories and defeats, which can themselves form an important part of your motivational journey.

The phone was put to the test in the shooting of this short film, used to film some of the more difficult scenes in the piece.

You can see the phone used by Pastrana to visually narrate her journey through the street in photo form. Shots of Pastrana training both in and outside the ring used the OPPO Find X5 Pro’s Ultra Night Video mode. This marks a paradigm shift in the video quality of OPPO phones, bringing the quality associated with enhanced low-light stills to moving images.

“I was quite surprised by the capabilities the phone has to take pictures at night,” says director Laura Sisteró.

A tapestry of software and hardware in the OPPO Find X5 Pro makes this a reality. Its wide and ultra-wide cameras use large, high-quality Sony IMX766 sensors. 5-axis OIS avoids motion blur and allows for longer shutter speeds, and OPPO’s self-developed MariSilicon X NPU fine tunes the camera’s advanced processing algorithms to suit each shooting situation.

If you would like to create your own night-time short film with the OPPO Find X5 Pro, take some of the creative choices made in the short film as inspiration. Note how Pastrana is not the only character here. The quiet atmosphere of the streets is brought into focus by the use of Pastrana’s footsteps as the primary soundtrack to each exterior shot. This sits in stark contrast to the traffic noise of the first few seconds of footage, shot during the day.

Director Sisteró plays with the shadows and light contrasts of the night-time city, and lets scenes bathe in the warmth of street light and the artificial lighting of neon signs. At night, each shadow can be an outlet for creative expression.

This visual language is a key part of the telling of Pastrana’s story, and you can do the same for your own night journey with an OPPO Find X5 Pro in your pocket. The phone is available to buy from mid-March. Read more about the OPPO Find X5 Pro at the OPPO website.