FW

First WOD — Video Kit

Type the state once. Get every graphic, every thumbnail, and all the copy.

This state

Everything updates as you type. Works offline — save this file to your laptop and open it from the Downloads folder on the road.
Click to load a hero image  ·  it gets cropped to fill 3840×2160

The 9-block timeline

Same order every video. You are never deciding structure at 9pm — you're dragging clips into slots. Target total edit time once the templates are built: 45–60 minutes per state.

#BlockLengthWhat goes hereGraphic
1Cold open0:00–0:05Your single sharpest image. No talking. The thing that's on the thumbnail.—
2The hook line0:05–0:12One sentence: the state's anomaly. "Vermont has one CrossFit gym. I drove 200 miles for it."State Title Card
3The contract0:12–0:22"State 11 of 50. I don't pick the workout — whatever's on their board is what I do." Every episode. Vary the wording.Counter Chip (stays up from here)
4The door0:22–1:00Arriving. The lot. Walking in. What you felt. Story Card field 01.—
5The room + the turn1:00–2:15Whiteboard shot. Wide of the room. The thing that surprised you. Fields 02 + 03.Whiteboard Card
6The workout2:15–3:15Fast, cut to music, 3 angles. Do not linger. This is the least interesting minute to a non-CrossFitter.—
7The line3:15–4:00Coach or member, unedited, on the Mic Mini. Field 05. Let them finish their sentence.Lower Third
8The cost4:00–4:30Fee, sleep, miles. Say the numbers out loud and show them. Field 04.Stat Card
9The truth4:30–5:00Piece to camera in the car. Field 06. One honest sentence. Then cut. No outro, no lesson, no "smash that subscribe."End Card
The one rule that saves the most time Blocks 1–3 are the only ones that need care. Blocks 4–9 are assembly. If you're running out of time, spend it on the first twenty-two seconds and let the rest be rough — that's where retention is won and it's the only part a stranger judges you on.

CapCut setup — do this once, before Sept 13

  1. Build a master project called FIRSTWOD_TEMPLATE. Put all nine blocks in as coloured placeholder clips with the right durations, plus your graphics on overlay tracks.
  2. Duplicate it for every state. CapCut → right-click project → Duplicate. Rename FW_11_VT. You never build a timeline from scratch again.
  3. Overlay tracks, fixed order, top to bottom: Counter chip (whole video) · Title/Stat/End cards · Lower thirds · Subtitles. Same order every time so your muscle memory works.
  4. Save your text styles as presets — CapCut lets you save a text style. Do it once for the subtitle style and once for the on-screen hook.
  5. Auto-captions for English. For the Amharic sections, type manually — auto-caption will not handle it. Budget 5 extra minutes on any video with Amharic.
  6. Export preset: 1080p, 30fps, high bitrate. Not 4K — it doubles export time on a laptop and nobody watching on a phone can tell.
Why CapCut over Resolve for this trip Resolve is the better tool and it is the wrong tool here. It's heavy on a laptop, it wants a colour pass you won't have time for, and its project management punishes you when you're working from 50 different folders. CapCut duplicates projects in one click, auto-captions well, and exports fast. You can move to Resolve for the finale video in December, when you have a desk and a week.

The 45-minute edit

MinDo
0–5Duplicate template project. Dump the day's clips in. Rename.
5–12Blocks 4–8: drag clips into the placeholder slots. Don't trim precisely yet.
12–20Block 1–3. This is where the care goes. Get the first 22 seconds right.
20–28Block 6, workout montage, cut on the beat. Block 9, the truth, trim to one clean sentence.
28–34Drop in the four PNGs from this kit. They're pre-positioned — no keyframing, no scaling.
34–40Auto-captions, fix the obvious errors, check the Amharic.
40–45Music, one pass on levels, export.

Then paste the copy from the Copy tab and upload. Total, door to door, under an hour.

What to film, every state

The edit is only fast if the footage exists. Twelve shots. Two of them are non-negotiable and the edit fails without them. Print this or keep it on your phone.

CRITICAL  The whiteboard A steady, readable 4-second hold on the board. Every single state. It's your proof you didn't pick the workout, it's a free thumbnail, and it's the one shot that's genuinely different in all 50 gyms. If you get nothing else, get this.
CRITICAL  The truth, to camera, in the car 60 seconds, before you drive off, phone propped on the wheel. Story Card field 06. This is block 9 and it's the ending of every video. Film it while you still feel it — if you wait until the hotel it comes out as a summary and it's dead.

The other ten

  • Exterior / sign5 seconds. Establishes the place. Also useful for the thumbnail.
  • You walking inFrom behind or a locked-off phone. The door moment.
  • Wide of the room8 seconds, hold still. Shows how full it is.
  • One detail shotStory Card field 02 — the specific thing you noticed. Photograph what you wrote down.
  • Warm-up, 2 angles10 seconds each. Cheap b-roll that always cuts.
  • The workout, 3 angles15 seconds each: wide, low, and close on your face. That's enough for a 60-second montage.
  • Your face after10 seconds, no talking, still breathing hard. Best single piece of b-roll you get.
  • Coach interview60–90 seconds on the Mic Mini. Ask one real question, not "how long have you been doing CrossFit."
  • One other member30 seconds. Ask why they drive however far they drive.
  • LeavingCar door, pulling out. Closes the loop and cuts to the next state.

Three questions that get better answers than anything else

  1. "How far does the furthest person here drive to come to this gym?"
  2. "What do people get wrong about this town?"
  3. "If I moved here next week, would I know anyone in a month?"

Question 3 is the one. It's the whole series in one sentence, it gets a real answer from almost anyone, and the fifty answers you collect are the spine of your final video. Ask it in every state, on the mic, and log the answer.

Phone settings, set once

  • 1080p 30fps, not 4K 60. You'll fill the drive and you'll never use the resolution.
  • Lock exposure before the whiteboard shot — gym lighting will hunt and the board will blow out.
  • Mic Mini on, always, even for b-roll. Room tone saves edits.
  • Dump the card to the laptop every rest day. Two rest days a week, two backups a week.