Maximizing Productivity: How Text-Based Editing Transforms Video Production

At MPW, we’re true believers in the power of social proof. It’s one of the most effective tools to build and strengthen consumer trust. As a result, we do a lot of unscripted, testimonial-style video production for our clients.

Anybody who’s ever used unscripted interviews as the raw material for ads or even longer-form web content – especially if they approach the work with the same care and attention to detail that we do – will tell you that it can be a tedious, time-consuming process. You might spend hours meticulously sifting through every second of every clip, looking for material that you might want to use, and one by one marking, labeling, and cataloging all those little sections. And that’s all before you even really start editing.

Well, that madness is behind us, thanks to Adobe Premiere’s new text-based editing features, now in beta and set to roll out in 2024. That’s great news for MPW – and for our clients.

What is text-based editing? You can probably guess from the name, and we think it’s one of the most exciting recent advances in video editing software.

First, Premiere can now auto-transcribe every clip upon import. And the transcriptions are remarkably accurate. But the best part is, once you have that transcript in front of you, you can make your edits right there in the text. That’s right, your video edits actually follow the edits you make in the text transcript and vice versa. Make an edit in one or the other, and it makes the edit in both. Truly amazing.

And the text is searchable. So let’s say you want to quickly find a word or phrase, either to remove it or to use it elsewhere in your edit. Just click delete, or cut, or copy and paste, and voila! It’s done. You can also filter for pauses and “filler” words like “um” and “uh,” and delete them all in one shot.

If you’ve never worked with video, you might be thinking “sounds cool, but why should I care?” Well, simply put, text-based editing is a true game changer that will make life easier for our video production team. And if you’re an MPW client, that means we’ll be able to work more quickly, efficiently – and affordably – for you.