As corporate video creators, it’s not uncommon for us to produce a video as short as two minutes from upwards of 3-4 hours of interview material. And while our interviews are usually focused on a clear and pre-defined story, it’s also not uncommon for our interview subjects to go on incredible tangents, tell amazing stories, or talk about something completely wonderful and unexpected. A lot of great stuff winds up on the cutting room floor, viewed only by the initial editor.
That’s why we were so excited several months ago when the folks over at Rev.com (our captioning service of choice) launched Temi.com – a fully automated, extremely accurate, and inexpensive ($.10/min at the time of this writing) transcription service.
With a transcription, all of a sudden 500GB of content can be passed around in a normal Word document. You just upload your video or audio, enter payment info, and a few minutes later you get your near-perfect transcript. Couldn’t be easier.
Transcribing your video opens up all sorts of possibilities…
- Revisit footage to look for certain words or phrases in a long interview
- Allow colleagues without access to high speed internet to collaborate on the video editing process
- Search through archived interviews or presentations without having to retrieve the actual files
- Find new, untapped stories to tell from pre-existing footage (this one’s our favorite – more content!)
We’ll often send along interview transcripts with the first draft of a video, allowing clients to review interview material without the burden or bandwidth requirements or hassle of sorting through video. Now that Temi’s come around – and works fantastically – it’s become standard operating procedure for us to generate and share transcripts of all of our unscripted work.
If you’re a creator or a marketer, transcription is a powerful tool to add to your content creation arsenal, and we hope this article helps get you started. If you’ve got other uses for transcribed material, or find other good services, please let us know in the comments!
