THE EDITING ROOM IS CHANGING: WHY ZAMBIAN CREATIVES MUST EMBRACE THE NEW AGE OF AI

YouTube’s conversational video editing technology is another reminder that filmmaking is changing, and Zambia’s creative industry must change with it

The global creative industry is entering another major technological transition. For Zambian filmmakers, editors, producers, animators, content creators and students, developments that once sounded futuristic are quickly becoming part of everyday production. Artificial intelligence is no longer sitting outside the filmmaking process. It is steadily becoming part of the tools used to develop, produce, edit, package and distribute content.

A recent example comes from YouTube, which has introduced a conversational video editing tool that allows creators to make editing decisions using ordinary language. Instead of performing every technical operation manually, a creator can describe what they want done to their footage and allow the system to assist with carrying out those instructions. According to TechCrunch, creators can ask the tool to perform tasks such as selecting takes, rearranging clips, removing pauses, adding text and synchronising edits with music. Importantly, creators can still return to the conventional editing timeline and refine the work themselves.

For Zambia’s creative industry, this is more than another technology story. It is a glimpse into how the relationship between creativity and technology is evolving, and it raises an important question for us: Are we preparing our filmmakers for the production environment they are about to enter?

The editor is not disappearing, the editing process is evolving

Every major technological shift in filmmaking has initially created uncertainty. The transition from analogue to digital production changed cinematography. Nonlinear editing transformed post production. Affordable digital cameras opened filmmaking to people who previously could not afford traditional production systems. Streaming changed distribution, while social media completely altered the relationship between creators and audiences.

Artificial intelligence is another stage in that evolution.

For many years, becoming an editor meant learning timelines, bins, tracks, trimming tools, transitions, keyframes, codecs and numerous other technical processes. Those skills remain valuable, but increasingly an editor may also be able to communicate with software conversationally. A filmmaker could potentially ask an editing system to identify the strongest takes from an interview, remove unnecessary pauses, construct a rough sequence or improve the pace of an opening scene before the editor takes over and makes the finer creative decisions.

That distinction is important because editing has never simply been about knowing where to click.

A good editor understands performance, emotion, rhythm, continuity, character, suspense and story. Two editors can receive exactly the same footage and produce completely different films because editing involves judgement. Technology may increasingly automate some of the mechanical processes involved in editing, but the filmmaker must still understand why one shot should follow another and what emotional response that decision is intended to create.

This is why our response to artificial intelligence should neither be fear nor blind excitement. It should be education.

Zambia should learn to direct the technology

For our young filmmakers in particular, the lesson from developments such as YouTube’s conversational editor is that technical knowledge alone may no longer be enough. The next generation of filmmakers will need a combination of traditional creative knowledge and an ability to work intelligently with emerging technologies.

A cinematographer must still understand light, composition, lenses, movement and visual storytelling. An editor must still understand rhythm and narrative. A writer must understand character and dramatic structure. A producer must understand budgets, audiences, rights and distribution. What is changing is that these professionals will increasingly have intelligent tools assisting different parts of their work.

Our task should therefore be to learn how to direct these technologies rather than simply compete against them.

There is little value in spending hours performing a repetitive technical process if technology can perform the same operation in minutes and allow the filmmaker to spend more time concentrating on storytelling. At the same time, there is danger in becoming so dependent on automated tools that we lose the professional knowledge required to recognise whether the machine has made the correct creative decision.

We must therefore learn both.

Understand editing before asking AI to edit. Understand cinematography before asking a system to generate an image. Understand storytelling before asking technology to help construct a story. The stronger your fundamentals are, the more effectively you can use these new tools.

This transformation could be particularly important for Zambia

Emerging technologies could have particular significance for countries such as Zambia because many of our independent filmmakers work under considerable resource constraints. A producer may be working with a small crew and a limited budget while simultaneously trying to develop a project, shoot it, edit it, create promotional material and distribute it online.

Tools that reduce repetitive production and post production work could allow smaller teams to accomplish more. A filmmaker in Kitwe, Ndola, Lusaka, Livingstone, Solwezi, Chipata or any other part of Zambia may increasingly have access to capabilities that previously required larger teams, more expensive facilities or significantly more production time.

That presents an opportunity, but it also creates greater competition.

If technology makes content creation easier for a filmmaker in Zambia, it is simultaneously making content creation easier for filmmakers everywhere else. Our competitive advantage therefore cannot simply be access to AI. The real advantage must remain our creativity, our professionalism and, most importantly, our stories.

Technology can help us edit faster, but it cannot replace the lived experiences from which Zambian stories emerge. It cannot independently reproduce the cultural understanding of our communities, languages, traditions, humour, histories and everyday realities.

That remains the responsibility of the filmmaker.

The opportunity is to combine that uniquely Zambian perspective with increasingly powerful production technology.

Our training must evolve with the industry

As the National Association of Media Arts, NAMA, we must also recognise that capacity building within our sector has to evolve. When we discuss professional development today, we cannot prepare creatives only for the production environment of yesterday.

Film schools, training institutions, associations and experienced industry professionals should increasingly expose emerging creatives to AI assisted production and post production while continuing to strengthen traditional filmmaking fundamentals. We should be discussing new editing workflows, virtual production, generative technologies, audience analytics, digital distribution, intellectual property and the ethical questions surrounding AI generated content.

These discussions are particularly important because embracing technology does not mean abandoning the rights of creators. Questions surrounding copyright, ownership, consent, attribution and the use of creative works in AI systems will continue to require serious attention from our industry. Creatives must understand not only what these technologies can do, but also the implications of how they are used.

The goal should never be to surrender our creativity to machines. It should be to use technology to remove unnecessary barriers between an idea and its execution while ensuring that the human creator remains responsible for the artistic vision.

The future belongs to creatives who continue learning

The history of filmmaking demonstrates that technology will continue changing. Cameras will become more intelligent, editing systems will become more automated, visual effects will become more accessible and distribution platforms will continue evolving.

What should remain constant is our willingness to learn.

My encouragement to Zambia’s filmmakers, editors, cinematographers, producers, writers, animators and content creators is therefore simple: do not run away from emerging technology. Understand it. Experiment with it. Learn where it can improve your work, understand where its limitations lie and continue strengthening the creative skills that technology cannot replace.

We should not allow Zambia to become merely a consumer of technologies developed elsewhere. Our young creatives should become skilled users, innovators and eventually contributors to this technological transformation.

The editing room is changing, but storytelling is not disappearing. If anything, as technology makes production more accessible, powerful ideas and distinctive voices will become even more important.

Zambia has those voices. We have the stories. We have the cultures, locations, histories and creative talent.

What we must now develop is the confidence and knowledge to combine them with the technologies shaping the future of global media.

Let us embrace the technology, master the tools and use them to tell Zambian stories better, faster and to audiences far beyond our borders.

By Morgan MbuloPresident, National Association of Media Arts, NAMAMedia Consultant

NAMA 2026 ©