Where is Ahmadou?, my mother would ask when I was younger in Dakar, Senegal.
He is at Karim’s house, watching TV again, would say my sister Ramatoulaye.
When I was little, I would squat at my best friend’s Karim house to watch Cable TV, as we only had regular channels at home.
In the early 1980s in Senegal, we had only one channel, ORTS (Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision du Sénégal), and it was boring as hell for a young child of 7 years old.
I have always been fascinated by the succession of pictures on the screen, those moving people, and their stories that opened new worlds for me.
For most of my life, I have been the guy that consumes other people’s stories. It was a great way of living thousands of lives. But, it was also a way, often, to keep my mind busy so that I would not have a look at the best movie unraveling before my eyes: the movie of my life, my movie.
When I arrived in France in 2000, I discovered that a computer could do more than just open Paint in Microsoft Windows Operating System and fill the circles with different colors.
My first attempt at video editing was in 2005. I was an intern at Airbus in Toulouse. At that time, one of my colleagues was interviewed on a local TV network. I edited the interview by adding subtitles and throwing in pictures.
Until the end of 2017, I did some videos now and then. They generally consisted of using iMovie from my mac. Then, I would drop some pictures on a template and be happy with that.
I even created a Youtube channel, which has a staggering number of 54 subscribers, most of them being my friends and family that I blackmailed with love to subscribe to.
If you have some spare time, please watch 1 or 2 videos.
No more, please!
Does this make me a failed Youtuber?
Yes, of course. There is no other answer to that question in this universe.
Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed since the beginning of 2018, I have been releasing videos monthly in a vlog series called Chillaxing With Mad (CWM).
In each CWM episode, I interview one of my colleagues to show the story behind the badge.
You can have a look at my latest episode at the time here:
I am in my 3rd season of CWM. I have filmed, edited, and released more than 24 videos in 2 years. That might seem a little.
Indeed, one of my favorite channels on Youtube is Lessons from the Screenplay, which has released only 51 videos in 4 years. And the channel has a staggering number of more than 1.2 million subscribers.
For me, it’s all about quality and consistency.
By the way, if Airbus were Youtube, I would be the PewDiePie of Airbus Youtube. So does it matter that I am the only one releasing videos as an individual employee on my channel? Maybe.
The most important thing for me here is not about the figures. It is more about how I became a better version of myself.
Let me explain. To do so, I will follow the five steps below to illustrate.
To perform EDITS on my videos, I always use the following steps:
1. Explore the rush videos in my library to know what I am dealing with
2. Define the Input/Output (I/O) points to add to my timeline
3. Insert the favorite videos in my timeline
4. Transcode the final result by exporting it into a video
5. Share the video with the world.
Whether you use Final Cut Pro like le, Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve, or any other video editing software, the five steps above apply.
1. Explore the rush videos in my library to know what I am dealing with
In video editing:
The first step is to collect all the inputs I need before starting the edit. It begins with the rush videos that I filmed that will mainly go in the main timeline, aka the “A-Roll.” I also collect overlay videos, pictures, and animations that will go on my second timeline on top of the main one, aka the “B-Roll.”
In this initial step, I need to map out everything I have at my disposal to tell my story. Of course, this step is iterative. Indeed I will enrich my A/B-Roll content all along the editing process with new footage.
I will acquire all the content I need to materialize the vision of the video I want to create.
I will watch all my rush videos for a detailed view of what is available.
In-life editing:
I could have done better on some projects in my life. As a result, I could not overcome some challenges in my life. One of the reasons was that I needed to take the time to map out what resources were available to me. The first-order consequence of not mapping out what I had, was that I needed to be made aware of what I was missing and where to find it.
I was randomly throwing things in the timeline of my life. But, as long as I felt the gap and fed the beast, I felt my life was complete.
Then I realized that the foundations of every project, the first step is to seek to have, as much as possible, a complete view of my assets.
Now before rushing to my vision, I first visualize my rushes.
2. Define the Input/Output (I/O) points to add to my timeline
In video editing:
Once I have a complete view of the content of my library, I start to build the elementary bricks that will constitute my masterpiece.
Knowing what raw material I have, I can quickly set my favorites. It’s not about eliminating the things I don’t want. It’s more about keeping the parts I want to be part of the final video.
As I know where everything is, I am very efficient in selecting my favorite bits. Moreover, thanks to the previous step, it saved me a lot of time.
In-life editing:
Now I systematically take time to assess raw footage in life. Then, if an opportunity presents itself, I instantaneously decide by defining my I/O points if I am facing a challenge.
That is how I edit what I take from what people tell me.
As I have defined my vision of what I need to fulfill my vision of my life, I take what I think is valuable from other people, critics, haters, and naysayers.
I have no FOMO syndrome: Fear Of Missing Out. But, because I took the time to know what was in my pallet, I had to select the right pencil to color the empty canvas in the timeline of my life that I would call my “time life.”
3. Insert the favorite videos in my timeline
In video editing:
You can accomplish much with the GUI (Graphic User Interface) with drop-down menus and lists when using a computer.
When I bought my mac in 2013, I invested in a mouse. I unboxed it and used it once and never again.
Why’s that?
Because I can accomplish much more quickly with the trackpad, the keyboard, and shortcuts.
In Final Cut Pro X, to insert a favorite in the timeline, I use keyboard shortcuts: “e,” “w,” or “q.” And bit by bit, I am building my A-Roll and enriching my B-Roll.
I use “J,” “K,” and “L” to play reverse, pause and play forward. And because I learned all the keyboard shortcuts upfront and have already selected my favorite, filling the timeline is effortless.
And because I use those shortcuts often, they become a reflex while editing my videos.
And in a glance of an eye, a few hours later, my timeline is complete.
In-life editing:
Like most people, I am a big fan of GUI in how I interact with the world.
I go to school and let my teacher be my user interface to knowledge.
I go back home and let my parents be my user interface for decision-making.
I go to work and let my boss be my user interface to what I can achieve.
Finally, I go to the supermarket and let big corporations be my user interface to which processed food I should ingest.
It’s easy, yet it makes me dizzy.
At some point, I decided to ditch the user interface and go directly to the command line because I realized that my time was limited and that if I wanted to accomplish more.
Learning from others: a shortcut.
Reading books: a shortcut.
Having a mentor: a shortcut.
Surrounding yourself with people that feed your light: a shortcut.
Cultivating good habits: a shortcut.
That is how I complete my “time life.”
4. Transcode the final result by exporting it into a video
In video editing:
Once I have finished editing my video, it is still in a format that the video editing software can only read.
I completed my video with voiceovers and added sound effects, titles, and background music.
I make the final touch by color-grading my video to make everything homogenous.
Now is export time. It is the final step, the payday of video editing when I hit the “export” button.
The vision that I had in my head now materialized before my eyes.
In-life editing:
Materializing an idea or a project into something tangible is a challenge. However, it could be easy if all the previous steps were done correctly.
First, I need to fill my A-Roll with the most important things I want to see in your world.
To do so, I transcode my beliefs into actions and habits, guided by my values and the vision I want to accomplish in life.
Then I fill my B-Roll to enrich your main storyline in life that I call my “story life.”
To do so, I let my results illustrate my actions.
Eventually, I will use a set of experiences to build a story that I will export to share with the world.
5. Share the video with the world.
In video editing:
Now I have a video file, a set of 0 and 1, ready to be shared with the world.
In this process, I started with a linear timeline when shooting my videos. Then I assembled them nonlinearly in the timeline of my video editing software. And I will share it with the world that will experience my story in a new linear timeline, the one from my creation.
I upload the video to Youtube or other video-sharing platforms.
Now some bits of me are part of the digital world. My digital trail will be a mark on my digital legacy.
In-life editing:
I spend a lot of time writing stories. The intention is to share it with the world. That is degree one intention. Down in the road, the second degree is to leave a testimony to my children and their children.
Each story I write is my way to take ownership of my “time life” and my “story life.”
Like the space-time continuum, my “story life” and “time life” are entangled to constitute the fabric of my life.
By always approaching each challenge in my life as a video to be shared with the world and by following the 5 EDITS steps above, I make sure that it will be a seamless process that will produce a tangible result.
With this framework, I am the Editor in Chief of my life, my “time life,” and my “story life.”
What are your best shortcuts to edit your life?
Are you a mouse person or a keyboard person?
What editors inspired you the most?
Leave a comment below.
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Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash
