Guest Blog: A Final Cut Pro workflow for editing in another language

Finding the right workflow for a project can be a challenge, especially when you have multiple languages, multiple tools, and multiple collaborators in the mix.  In our latest guest blog, Chad Braham, an editor and Director of Media Production at WORDonCancer.org describes in very helpful detail how they’ve developed a translation workflow that starts from Final Cut Pro and ends back in Final Cut Pro with a full resolution subtitled version that enables him to edit the film in a language that he doesn’t speak.

Got an interesting story about how you’re using InqScribe? Please contact us at support@inqscribe.com if you’d like to highlight your work.

by Chad Braham, Editor, Director of Media Production, WORDonCancer.org

WORDonCancer.org is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Indianapolis, IN, that aims to educate and raise awareness about women’s cancer.

This summer, our organization is working on a documentary short film about a cervical cancer prevention program in the Peten region of Guatemala, entitled, “No More <http://nomorethemovie.com/>. Due to the location of where the film was shot, a large portion of the footage needs to be translated and subtitled (from Spanish to English) for the final piece.

Much of this translation is currently being done by a small group of volunteers, most of whom have little to no subtitling/transcription experience. Because of this, we needed a solution that was easy to learn and use, was available on multiple platforms (PC and Mac) and could work within our Final Cut Pro 7 video editing workflow.

As you probably already know, Inqscribe <http://inqscribe.com/> does all the above and more. As the editor of this film, I must say that I don’t speak much spanish, so it was critical that our translation workflow start and end with Final Cut Pro. With Inqscribe I can edit spanish speaking interviews, in Final Cut Pro, with subtitles, and find sound bites and edit points as if I were editing an english speaking interview. Our typical workflow is as follows:

1. Export a clip of spanish speaking footage from Final Cut Pro as a small reference video file with a timecode window burned in. In an attempt to keep the physical file size small (and the duration short for our volunteers) we usually keep the file to around 7 minutes long (a 320×180 Quicktime file at Photo-JPEG with “Medium” compression seem to play-back better then “.mp4″ files on slower PC machines).

2. Upload the file to our FTP site or Google Drive (depending on the volunteer’s preferences) and notify the volunteer with an email that also includes a few notes about the file (who the person speaking is, why we
chose to talk to them, etc.)

3. Volunteer transcribes in Inqscribe and breaks up the transcription into phrases with timecode for subtitling exports.

4. The volunteer then emails over just the “.inqscr” file, that the video editor opens in his copy of InqScribe, makes a few adjustments to ensure it adheres to basic subtitling best practices (amount of text per
subtitle, etc.), and then exports out an XML from InqScribe for Final Cut Pro import.

5. The XML export is then imported into Final Cut Pro and sync’d to the full-rez version of the translated clip. This is really the beauty of translating and transcribing with Inqscribe, the translation is already broken into full-resolution subtitling text “slides” in FCP and can be edited further without any quality loss to the video or text.

One of the biggest challenges of producing any documentary, is organizing the massive amounts of footage and material, into a compelling story. This is especially complicated when a good portion of the material you are working with is in a foreign language. Luckly, there is a software like InqScribe that is so easy, anyone can use it.

You can learn about this film at the film’s website www.nomorethemovie.com.

InqScribe 2.1.1 Released

We’ve just released a minor update to InqScribe: version 2.1.1.

This is a free upgrade for all users.

Download the update here.

Primarily, the update improves the behavior of time code-specific fields (such as the Start Time field) to better match Final Cut Pro’s behavior.  In addition, InqScribe will now automatically download updates for you.

Also, please note that we’ve changed the behavior of USB devices: now you need to plug in your USB devices BEFORE you start InqScribe.  This should improve the stability of certain types of devices.

Here’s the full change list:

• The behavior of time code-specific fields (such as the Start Time field in the Select Media Source dialog) has been changed from version 2.1. The new behavior will feel natural to Final Cut Pro users and offers a couple of different ways to quickly enter time codes. Click the blue help icon next to the field to learn more about your entry options.
• InqScribe’s internal update checker now provides access to release notes and offers to download updates.
• InqScribe can now read shared license files from platform-specific shared preference locations. This is primarily for site licensees who use InqScribe in lab settings. Contact us for more information if this sounds interesting.
• Added support for the 23.98 frame rate.
• The Adjust Time Code field adds explicit add and subtract options instead of requiring you to add negative time codes if you want to subtract.
• InqScribe no longer recognizes USB input devices (foot pedals, etc.) that are plugged in after InqScribe has been launched. While this was a convenience, it triggered hard crashes in rare cases with certain classes of devices. If you need to enable an input device after InqScribe has been launched, go ahead and plug it in, and then quit and relaunch InqScribe.
• Fixed undo bug where changing the selection would not end a typing run.
• Improved file compatibility with non-US locales.
• Windows: Text copied to other applications no longer use incorrect line endings.
• Additional miscellaneous bug fixes.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Film Editors

One of our customers, a professor at a film school, suggested this tip:

For those of you used to using industry standard editting software like Final Cut and Avid, you can map “j”, “k”, and “l” with modifier keys to back/pause/forward.  Since you need the j/k/l keys for actually inputting text during transcription, you’ll need to use modifier keys (Ctrl, Command, etc.).

On the Mac you would use the “Command” and “Option” keys to set up something like this:

• Command-j => Play Backwards at Custom Rate 1.x
• Command-Option-j => Play Backwards at Custom Rate 2.0x
• Command-k => Pause
• Command-l => Play at Custom Rate 1.x
• Command-Option-l => Play at Custom Rate 2.0x

In Windows you would use the “Ctrl” and “Shift” keys to set up something like this:

• Ctrl-j => Play Backwards at Custom Rate 1.x
• Ctrl-Shift-j => Play Backwards at Custom Rate 2.0x
• Ctrl-k => Pause
• Ctrl-l => Play at Custom Rate 1.x
• Ctrl-Shift-l => Play at Custom Rate 2.0x

You can obviously tweak these to suit your workflow.

Note that by setting Command-l/Ctrl-l to “Play at Custom Rate 1.x” you can toggle back and forth between the fast speed and the slow speed.  If you set it to “Play” instead, hitting Command-l/Ctrl-l would only continue playing at the current play rate.  So if you’re already at 2.x, the play rate won’t change.

An alternative approach would be to set Command-Option-l/Ctrl-Shift-l to “Change Play Rate” by 1.x.  Then every time you hit Command-Option-l/Ctrl-Shift-l the play rate would increase to 2.x, 3.x, etc..  And you can hit Command-l/Ctrl-l to get back to the 1.x rate.  This would more emulate the behavior of FCP.

For instructions on how to set up shortcuts: http://www.inqscribe.com/docs/keyboardshortcuts.html

Comments are turned off in this blog, but head on over to our Facebook page for to leave comments: http://www.facebook.com/InqScribe

charity: water

We’re proud to be sponsors of charity: water.  InqScribe’s ability to support transcriptions and subtitles in multiple languages make it ideally suited for work in the field, especially for organizations such as charity: water that rely on story telling.  Here’s how they describe their work:

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Photo by charity: water

In 2006, we followed women in Ethiopia to a tepid water hole, where they filtered muddy liquid through their headscarves into a Jerry can. They hauled more than 40 pounds of this water on their backs to take home to their families. This is the only drinking water they had and they had to make it work for cleaning their homes, cooking, and unfortunately- drinking.

We filmed this. We shared their stories to show what millions of people in developing countries do each and every day. The response was overwhelming.

Fast forward five years and we’ve funded more than 4,200 water projects around the world to serve over two million people with clean water. Why? Because we’ve stuck to telling honest and beautiful stories from people living through the water crisis. As a result, thousands have joined our mission by donating or fundraising alongside us.

Each story we tell empowers giving as we return and share it with those willing to help… but we currently do all of our post-production work with very little equipment. Since we’re shooting in places that require a great deal of translation and subtitles, we also need to do a lot of transcribing.

InqScribe’s software allows us to quickly transcribe in one program — instead of having to toggle back and forth between a video and an excel spreadsheet. Not only that, the shortcut controls allow us to customize each document, thereby streamlining our editing process. Speeding up our post production only makes us more efficient in sharing stories that need to be heard.

Thank you for your time and all you do to improve video storytelling.

Guest Blog: “This is definitely the fastest transcription we’ve ever done.”

InqScribe & OSX Lion: It works!

We have done some testing of InqScribe in Apple’s newly released OS 10.7 “Lion,” and we’re continuing to do more. The good news is that everything seems to work fine in Lion, with one easy-to-address caveat. Here is our partial report:

InqScribe launches in Lion and will perform the basics — video playback, time code insertion, even foot pedal controls all work fine. Transcript windows scroll nicely with Lion’s new multitouch and scrollbar. InqScribe also works with Lion’s “saved state” feature, meaning that the windows you were working on during your last session will automatically open next time you launch it.

InqScribe does not yet work with Lion’s “versions” and “autosave” features; we’re working on that.

There is one important caveat: Lion (and Snow Leopard) users still need QuickTime 7.6.6.

Though it is not required, we recommend that all InqScribe users install QuickTime 7, since it supports many features that are not supported by the more recent QuickTime X (in Mac OS 10.6 and higher) and Windows Media Player (in Windows). QuickTime is available as a free download from Apple.

There are several versions of QuickTime 7 available, depending on your OS version.

• If you have Mac OSX 10.6 or 10.7 (Snow Leopard or Lion), download QuickTime 7.6.6
• If you have Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard), download QuickTime 7.6.9
• If you use Windows, you can continue to download the latest Windows version of QuickTime

Notes:

• Depending on how you open your movie files, they may launch by default in QuickTime X. So if you’re doing things like subtitling, make sure to open your subtitled movies in QuickTime 7.6.6.
• In Lion, QuickTime 7 installs to your Applications > Utilities folder rather than the “Applications” folder.

A simple fix to a common error: Resolving the Windows “MediaProxy” bug

There was a known bug in InqScribe version 2.0.5 (and earlier) that caused problems with Windows Media Player. The crash report mentions things like “WMP_Provider” and “MediaProxy”.

This has been fixed in InqScribe version 2.1. Simply upgrade to the latest version of InqScribe and your problem will be solved. The upgrade is free; you can download it here: http://www.inqscribe.com/download.html

You can read more about this issue in our knowledge base.

Taking and Sharing Notes on Video

InqScribe’s free-form text editing is intended to support a wide variety of tasks. So while we often talk of “transcribing” video, in practice oftentimes it’s more efficient to simply take notes. I was reminded of this in recent conversation with one of our customers at a cable tv network: sometimes all you want to do is review a clip and call out highlights from the video that you might want to use.

This is particularly useful in team environments: you can watch a video, insert a timecode and quick note about interesting moments, and then share the InqScribe document with your editor or director. The editor/director can click on the timecode to view the segment of video.

For example, we need to edit our introductory screencast. I review the video and I write the following in an InqScribe transcript to tell Matt (who’s editing the video):

Cut [00:00:06.00] through [00:00:14.23] -- we can jump straight into the intro.
The audio at [00:00:27.00] is unclear.  Can you re-record that?
End the clip at [00:01:06.03].

Matt already has the video on his computer, so I can just email the InqScribe file to him. He’ll copy it to the folder where the video is, open the InqScribe file, and the transcript will automatically link itself to the media again. (Alternatively, you can reference a common file on a network somewhere). He can then click on the timecodes I’ve inserted to see exactly what I”m talking about.

The “transcript” is only few lines, but it conveys everything he needs to know. And obviously, there’s no need for a line by line transcript. A few timecoded notes suffice.

Guest Blog: Using InqScribe with Final Cut Pro and multiple languages

InqScribe’s ability to export transcripts to Final Cut Pro has made it particularly useful for documentary filmmakers working in multiple languages.  In this latest guest blog, part of our ongoing series highlighting how folks use InqScribe, Carlos Sandoval, an award-winning filmmaker, talks about how they’re using it with their latest project.

Got an interesting story about how you’re using InqScribe? Please contact us at info@inquirium.net if you’d like to highlight your work.

The Arizona Project

We are currently working on a feature documentary tentatively titled THE ARIZONA PROJECT. The film takes on Arizona’s current struggle with illegal immigration and presents it from all sides of the issue: from the perspective of the recent immigrants, to that of native Arizonans who are seeing their communities change. Because we are dealing with material in both English and Spanish, InqScribe has been invaluable for our editorial and post production tasks.

InqScribe allows us to quickly and easily access our footage and to create time code specific documents that will reference said footage. This allows us to best isolate the material that will shape our story. We can create transcriptions of our interviews in English, and translations of those in Spanish. Even more importantly, we can create subtitles in InqScribe that quickly and easily get imported into Final Cut Pro saving us (literally) hours and hours of time. This versatility is instrumental for a project like ours.

Thank you for making such a great product and for helping to bridge the gap between Spanish and English speakers. I wish we’d have had InqScribe when we were working on our award-winning film, Farmingville.

Carlos Sandoval

Camino Bluff Productions, Inc.
752 West End Ave., 2F | New York, NY 10025
p. 212 666 3266 | f. 212 864 4313
mail@caminobluff.com | www.CaminoBluff.com

Second language learning using films

A part of our occasional series highlighting interesting uses of InqScribe

In addition to transcriptionists and documentary filmmakers, researchers make up a large portion of InqScribe users.  Although, in this case, we hit two of our favorite topics simultaneously: research and education.

Alex Gilmore, a professor at the University of Tokyo, just published a book chapter on using InqScribe to produce film-based teaching resources based for second language learning.

Why film?  Think about it, wouldn’t you rather learn a language by watching a film than reading boring text or hokey audio tapes? Films are a naturally motivating platform for teaching language. They’re also useful because they have contextual and discourse features like colloquial language, politeness strategies, and vague language that make them valuable for developing listening skills. They represent a much more authentic use of language.

Why not just use the subtitles present in many DVDs? Subtitles are actually often condensed versions of what is actually said. In language learning, it’s important to have the full text. So you have to take the time to produce quality learning materials.

In the chapter, Professor Gilmore details a procedure in which he uses InqScribe to produce teaching materials for an episode of Fawlty Towers, a British comedy television series. This includes subtitles as well as classroom materials. He covers ripping from DVD all the way to producing subtitles, so it’s a pretty thorough tutorial.

He’s generously provided a PDF of the chapter. You can download the paper here.

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Gilmore, A. (2009). Catching words: Exploiting film discourse in the foreign language classroom. In F. Mishan & A. Chambers (eds.), Perspectives on Language Learning Materials Development. Oxford: Peter Lang AG.