400 photos at midnight. A finished video by 3 am.
I got the idea at 12 midnight. By 3 in the early morning the video was ready. 400 plus photos, no video editor.I got the idea at 12 midnight. By 3 in the early morning the video was ready.
- I got the idea at 12 midnight. The video was ready by 3 in the early morning.
- I gave Ai access to 1 folder with 400 plus photos. No video editor, no brief, no call.
- My team would have done a good job. They could not have put my feeling inside the edit.
- The next evening I asked for a smaller cut and got a 30 to 40 second clip from the same photos.
- Hand Ai the jobs where the feeling has to be yours. Keep your people on the work that needs a human.
In this article
- 01The old way started with 5 steps, and none of them made the video
- 02My team would have done it well. It still would not have been mine.
- 03What I actually did at 12 midnight
- 04The next evening I asked for a smaller one
- 05How to tell which jobs go to Ai and which stay with your people
- 06This was a family video. It is also how work moves now.
- 07Questions, answered
I got the idea at 12 midnight. By 3 in the early morning the video was ready. Not a rough first version. Ready.
My nephew turned 3. My wife and I live in Dubai and the whole family is in India, so we could not be at his party. I still wanted to give him something. A little memory of his 3 years, from day 1 till today, out of all the photos we have of him.
He has been seeing the 2 of us together since he was about 9 or 10 months old, so there are a lot of photos. More than 400 of them.
In a world without Ai, that video takes days and it comes back in somebody else's taste. In this world, I handed the job to Ai in the middle of the night and it was done before the sun came up.
01The old way started with 5 steps, and none of them made the video
I know the old way well, because I have done it many times. Here is exactly how this video would have happened before.
5 steps before anything got edited
- 01Collect the photos
Pull every photo of him into 1 folder on my computer.
- 02Upload the folder
Put it on Drive so somebody else can reach it.
- 03Hand it to my team
Share the folder and write a small note on what I want.
- 04Wait for the idea
Somebody has to shape the concept, a 3 year journey from day 1 till today.
- 05Wait for the edit
Then the real work, fitted around everything else they have on.
Read those 5 again. Only the last one is the video. The first 4 are moving a folder around and asking a human being to understand me.
And then there is the clock. The idea came at 12 midnight. My team is asleep at 12 midnight, and in the morning they have my clients work and my company's work in front of them. So I would not have had this video in 3 hours. I would have had it in a few days, after the birthday was over.
02My team would have done it well. It still would not have been mine.
This is not a complaint about my team. They are good at what they do. But 2 things were never going to travel through a Drive link.
Why the same photos become 2 different videos
Faces they do not know
The people I love
The cleanest photo
The photo of the moment I remember
After the paid work is done
Right now, at 12 midnight
Explain all of it
Nothing
A good editor picks the clearest photo. I pick the blurry one, because of what was happening in it. Nobody can pull that out of their own head and put it into yours.
You can hand over the work. You cannot hand over the feeling.
So the real choice was never my team against Ai. It was this. Do the edit myself with Ai and keep the feeling in it, or write the feeling down for somebody else and hope it survives the trip.
03What I actually did at 12 midnight
Here is the whole process, and it is almost nothing.
The whole thing, start to finish
- 01Dump the photos
Every photo of the 3 years in 1 folder. There were 400 plus of them.
- 02Give access to that folder
That was the entire brief. No concept note, no call, no meeting.
- 03Let it edit
The whole video was edited by Claude while I sat there.
That is it. No video editor. Nobody to explain it to. And the video was beautiful. It came back at almost 5 or 6 minutes, with all the family members and everyone from these past 3 years inside it.
I gave it 1 folder. It gave back a 6 minute video.
04The next evening I asked for a smaller one
Then the next day, in the evening, I wanted something else. Not the full family journey. Just the 2 of us.
So I asked again. Out of those 6 minutes, give me only him and me. No year by year journey. Just cute little memories, in less than 60 seconds.
It gave me a nice little reel, about 30 to 40 seconds, and that one is amazing too. Same photos, a second video, a completely different feeling, and I did not have to set up anything new.
Here is that smaller one. This is the video I posted on Instagram.
This is the part most owners miss. Asking for version 2 cost me 1 sentence. When a job sits with a busy person, version 2 is a fresh request and a fresh wait, so most of the time you quietly live with version 1.
05How to tell which jobs go to Ai and which stay with your people
This is the question I get asked most. Here are the 5 questions I now run in my own head every time a job shows up.
Ai, or a human
- 01Does the feeling have to be mine?
If the taste in it has to be yours, do not pass it to another person. Sit with Ai and keep your feeling inside it.
- 02Is the raw material already with me?
400 photos sitting in a folder is finished raw material. Ai can start on it in the next minute.
- 03Do I want it tonight?
If the honest answer is tonight, your team cannot be the answer. They are asleep, or they are on paid work.
- 04Would I have to explain it for an hour?
If the briefing takes longer than the job, do the job with Ai.
- 05Does somebody have to be in the room?
A meeting, a hard call, a decision about money. Those stay with people.
If the first 4 answers are yes, do it with Ai tonight. Do not put it in anybody's queue.
What I never hand to a machine
- A client meeting, where somebody needs to look you in the eye.
- A hard phone call, where the words have to come from a human.
- A decision about money, where somebody has to carry the risk.
- Any work where a person has to stand behind the result.
06This was a family video. It is also how work moves now.
It would be easy to read this as a sweet little birthday story. It is more than that. It is the clearest example I have of a job that used to belong to my team, now done by me and Ai, finished in the same night I thought of it.
Now think about your own list. Your own brand video. The small page for your own offer. The idea you got on a drive home. All of it sitting behind client work, because your team is busy and your own things are always last. That is where most service business owners lose their best ideas. Not to a bad idea. To a queue.
Your own ideas should not stand in line behind your clients.
Hand those jobs to Ai. Keep your people on the work that needs a human. Your own ideas then get finished the same night you have them, in your own taste, with your own feeling still in them.
Pick 1 idea of your own that has been waiting on your team for more than 2 weeks, open the folder of raw material you already have, and finish it with Ai tonight.
07Questions, answered
Does this mean I should cut my team?
No. I did not replace anybody. I moved 1 kind of job. My team still does the work that needs a human, and I stopped putting my own personal ideas into their queue.
What did you actually give the Ai?
Access to 1 folder with the photos in it, 400 plus of them. No concept note, no call, no meeting.
How long did it really take?
I got the idea at 12 midnight and the video was ready by 3 in the early morning. It was closer to 2 hours than 3.
Can I change it after it is made?
Yes, and that is the best part. The next evening I asked for only the 2 of us in under 60 seconds, and I got a 30 to 40 second clip out of the same photos. That is the one you can watch on Instagram in this article.
What if my photos are a mess?
Mine were a dump. I just put every photo of him into 1 folder and gave access to it. Tidy folders are for people, not for this.
If you want to see which jobs are quietly stuck in your team's queue and which ones you could finish yourself this week, take the Capacity Diagnostic.
Digital PratikA 37 year old, smiling, practical Gujarati, a Kathiyawadi businessman. Founder of JorrDaar LLC, Dubai.
