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interviews for documentarys

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  • 03-03-2011 5:21pm
    #1
    Bob Z
    Registered Users Posts: 2,587 ✭✭✭


    How do people here edit interviews? do they listen and cut out the bad parts? or do they transcribe the whole interview?


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    #2
    Surly
    Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭Surly


    Personally I never bother with transcription, bit of a waste of time.

    As you mention, I do a first run lopping out all the stuff you know you're not going to use. After that you can use subclips/locators/markers to keep the various segments organised, then it's just a matter of honing everything down to fit your needs.


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    #3
    Miguel_Sanchez
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,417 ✭✭✭Miguel_Sanchez


    Surly wrote: »
    Personally I never bother with transcription, bit of a waste of time.

    It really depends what you're cutting. If it's a large project with a lot of interviews then transcribing will serve you very very well indeed. Take it from someone who has spent hours trawling through interviews for a specific phrase because the director didn't get anyone to transcribe the interviews thinking it "a waste of time."


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    #4
    Surly
    Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭Surly


    Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »
    Take it from someone who has spent hours trawling through interviews for a specific phrase because the director didn't get anyone to transcribe the interviews thinking it "a waste of time."

    ... versus the countless hours spent actually transcribing the interviews?

    Each to his own, but to me it's an inefficient use of time and something that often isn't necessary if you catalogue the footage properly.


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    #5
    Miguel_Sanchez
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,417 ✭✭✭Miguel_Sanchez


    Surly wrote: »
    ... versus the countless hours spent actually transcribing the interviews?

    Each to his own, but to me it's an inefficient use of time and something that often isn't necessary if you catalogue the footage properly.

    That's why God gave us assistants.

    I don't know where you're getting 'countless hours' though. Sure it takes time but if you're cutting a feature documentary and need to be able to find exactly where a subject says something specific then having the interview transcribed saves you a lot of time. And considering an edit suite and an editor costs far more than a PA then it saves both time and money in the long run.

    If it's a smaller project though then obviously that changes.


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    #6
    Surly
    Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭Surly


    Having somebody else do the work for you changes things of course.

    As to the 'countless hours', the 12 hours of interviews I'm cutting down at the minute would take me somewhere between 15 and 20 hours to transcribe, time I'd prefer to spend actually editing. I honestly doubt that not having a transcription of these interviews is going to slow me down to the extent where I lose 15-20 hours.

    Unfortunately I don't have an assistant on this particular job and I'd venture that the OP probably didn't have the help of an assistant in mind either, but I could be wrong.


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