Guest Blog: Global Collaboration Made Easy for Dalit Women Fight

The Dalit Women Fight crew uses InqScribe to translate footage for their feature-length documentary. Read about their work, and how InqScribe helps them cross language barriers.

By: Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Director of Dalit Women Fight

#Dalitwomenfight!

Dalit Women Fight is a transmedia documentary that looks at the issue behind the rape epidemic in India: caste-based sexual violence. Dalit Women Fight braids the stories of three women as they move from despair to courage during the events surrounding the global Dalit Women’s Self-Respect Movement, a transnational campaign calling for an end to caste-based sexual violence.

Dalit is a term that refers to South Asia’s Untouchable people, and the Dalit women at the heart of this film are leading India’s largest historical challenge to India’s rape and caste culture through the Dalit Women’s Self­-Respect March. The strategies used by the Dalit movement mirror the U.S. Freedom Rides, mashed-up with the Take Back the Night marches. The goal of our documentary is to educate others about the Dalit Women Fight Movement and to challenge the current systems of violence.

InqScribe: Where Everything Comes Together

We use InqScribe to translate footage from all over the world. In India alone we have over 12 languages, often from very inaccessible rural areas where the dialects are difficult to translate. InqScribe allows us to upload footage and tap into local leaders working remotely, who can then create vital transcripts that are used for editing and titling. Our volunteers translate Hindi, Bhojupuri, Marathi and Urdu reels of footage, working remotely in locations spanning from Haryana to Los Angeles. We recruit many different sets of eyes and ears looking to be involved in the production process. Without InqScribe, our process would be so much more tedious as there would be no single platform that can handle all the tasks that InqScribe lets us centralize.

#Dalitwomenfight! from Thenmozhi on Vimeo.

In the past, we used several programs, playing video with QuickTime or Windows Media Player and transcribing with Microsoft Word or Notepad. It was such a problem, due to the lack of time stamps, sound control boards and other necessary controls. InqScribe is a single tool. Dozens of our volunteers are able to accurately utilize it with little to no difficulty. Our workflow has expanded greatly, and we have been able to produce vital footage within our time-sensitive schedule. With InqScribe, we’re able to make the most of our translation production time and increase the translation quality by hiring qualified translators who can easily be given access to the tool.

Our favorite feature is the timecode shortcut and the options for multiple export formats. Since our project is multi-layered and requires extensive editing and reviews, we are able to adequately connect translators with footage. InqScribe has been extremely easy to use for our multi-lingual translators who have little experience with translation software, and we are always impressed by the high quality production.

About the Author

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is a Dalit American transmedia artist/activist and the Director of the full-length documentary Dalit Women Fight.

—

Thanks Sharmin! Learn more about Dalit Human Rights and caste-based violence at ncdhr.org.in/aidmam. For any questions or comments about InqScribe, shoot us an email at support@inqscribe.com.

Create Subtitles with InqScribe and Final Cut Pro 7

InqScribe’s integration with Final Cut Pro has made it a popular tool among filmmakers, particularly when their projects require generating subtitles.

Sometimes we come across interesting blog posts from users about how they put InqScribe to use. Here’s one from Jessey Dearing of Talking Eyes Media about how he uses InqScribe along with Final Cut Pro 7 for subtitling. Take a look at his step-by-step guide for how to integrate these applications to quickly and easily produce subtitles for  film projects.

Do you have an interesting story about how you’re using InqScribe? Please contact us at support-at-inqscribe.com if you’d like to share a story about a workflow or a project that uses Inqscribe.

InqScribe Tips: Format Transcripts as Tables

We often get inquiries from our users about how to format text as tables in InqScribe. Because InqScribe’s transcript window is “plain text,” it does not support tables. However, we can suggest these methods for converting InqScribe transcripts into table format.

Many of our users use the Tab key to delineate columns and the Return key to delineate rows. You can export your transcript as “Tab-delimited text” from within InqScribe and then open in a program that supports tables, such as Word or Excel.

Word

1. Export the transcript as Tab-delimited Text…

File > Export > Tab Delimited Text...

Click export

2. Open the exported text file. Select the text, and then copy and paste into a blank Word document.

Open the text file

Copy the text

Paste into Word

3. Choose Table>Convert>Convert text to table to convert the text to a table.

Table > Convert > Convert to Table

Click OK

Text formatted as a table

To further format your table (e.g., change the color of the cells or borders) choose Format>Borders and Shading…

You can also export your transcript as HTML, which creates an HTML-based table format. You can open the HTML file directly in Word and repeat the steps above to create a table with borders.

Excel

1. Open the exported text file. Select the text, and then copy and paste into a blank spreadsheet.

Copy the text

Paste into a blank spreadsheet

Text in Excel

Your tips and ideas

Do you have another way of formatting transcripts created in InqScribe? Need additional features? Let us know via our customer feedback pages.

InqScribe and Final Cut Pro 7: Subtitling Workflow for Filmmakers

We occasionally feature guest bloggers who can offer insights into different workflows. For the beginning documentary filmmaker, managing Final Cut Pro (FCP) workflows in a foreign language in combination with InqScribe can be daunting at first. This is why we asked Chad Braham, an experienced InqScribe and FCP user to describe his workflow in detail. While you may find that your specific workflow needs to be slightly different, we hope that this offers some insight into one approach, or gives you some ideas about how you can set up your own.

Hi, my name is Chad Braham. I’m a media producer, filmmaker, and a big fan of InqScribe. So when Inquirium invited me to write about how I create subtitled sequences using FCP 7 and InqScribe, I jumped at the chance.

This tutorial is written for the beginner filmmaker and focuses on timecode syncing and template editing. This tutorial will teach you how to:

• set up a workflow for adding subtitles to all of the clips in an FCP project;
• assemble a custom InqScribe Export Template in FCP for subtitle slide creation;
• and produce subtitled sequences in FCP that you can use to put together your film.

This workflow is particularly useful when working with foreign languages. The addition of subtitles makes it possible for an editor not familiar with the language to put together a film. This process can be applied to projects using full-resolution/online versions of clips, or low-resolution/offline versions (ProRes Proxy).

Step 1:
Create a new bin and sequence

A. In FCP, create a new bin in your project to keep copies of the clips to be translated and subtitled: File > New > Bin. Name the bin “For Translation.”

B. Create a new sequence in the “For Translation” bin:

1. Choose a clip that needs to be translated from your project.
2. Select the “For Translation” bin and then choose File > New > Sequence.

Example: We named our clip “Interview Clinic Director 03” and named the sequence “Clinic Director 03.”

C. Overwrite-Edit the clip to be translated on to V1 and A1/A2 at the very start of the new sequence in the timeline.

Tip: You can also export a clip directly from FCP without putting it in a sequence to be prepped, which will produce the same result: A sequence that includes the clip on V1 and the subtitle on V2. Creating the sequence now and prepping the clips is a best practice.

Step 2:
Prep the sequence for export

A. Insert the “Timecode Reader” filter on the sequence by selecting the timeline window with the appropriate sequence and choosing Effects > Video Filters > Video > Timecode Reader.

B. Tweak the filter’s parameters and copy it to your “For Translation” bin for use on other translations:

1. Double-click the clip in video track 1 (V1) in the “Timeline” to load the clip into the “Viewer” window.
2. Choose the “Filters” tab in the viewer window for filter settings. We chose these “Timecode Reader” settings: “Size” = 12, “Center” = 0 – 468.5.
3. Apply the filter by dragging it from the viewer into your “For Translation” bin.

Tip: Having timecode “burnt” onto the video file can be very useful. It can serve as a reference to crosscheck when importing subtitles and when collaborating or sharing low-res (raw) clips from a project. The presence of timecode on a clip reminds people (including opinionated clients) that the clip is for reference only and not ready for general public distribution.

C. Do a rough mix of the audio in the sequence to ensure that the translator can hear the audio clearly. We isolated the mic on track A1 for the interviewee and kept the interviewer’s mic on track A2, only at the open and close of the clip so we had context for the interview content.

Step 3:
Export the sequence into a low-resolution clip for transcription

A. Set In-and-Out points at the start and end of the clip in the sequence. The accuracy of the In-and-Out points is vital to having your subtitles sync to this clip later on:

1. Click on the clip in the video track (V1) in the sequence.
2. With the clip selected, choose Mark > Mark Selection.

B. Export the sequence by selecting File > Export > Using QuickTime Conversion:

1. When the “Save” dialog appears, choose “Options” from the lower-left corner of the box to open the “Movie Settings” dialog.
2. Settings will largely be dependent on the native format of the video you are editing in FCP. In our example, the native format is 1080p 23.98fps – audio at 48khz. To downsize from this widescreen aspect ratio we used these settings:

– Video Settings –
Compression Type: Photo – JPEG
Depth: Color
Frame Rate: “Current” fps
Quality: Medium
Video Size > Dimensions: Custom 320×180

– Sound Settings –
Format: Linear PCM
Channels: Mono
Rate 48.000 kHz
Render Quality: Normal
Linear PCM Settings – Sample Size: 16 bits (Little Endian)

– Deselect “Prepare for Internet streaming”

Tip: There are modern video compression types such as H.264. As beautiful and compact as the newer compression codecs are, they are also processor intensive during playback. On some computers, especially older ones, this can adversely affect the performance of InqScribe, causing the video to skip or the audio to drop out. We found the Photo – JPEG compression to be more reliable, even on older PCs.

Step 4:
Create subtitle template and organize bins and sequences

A. Create a sub-bin inside of your “For Translation” bin and name it “Subtitle Templates:”

1. Select the “For Translation” bin and control-click on the title and choose, “New Bin” from the drop-down menu.
2. Select the new bin and name it “Subtitle Templates.”

B. Create a new sequence in the “Subtitle Templates” bin:

1. Select the “Subtitle Templates” bin and control-click on the title and choose “New Sequence” from the drop-down menu.
2. Open the “Subtitle Templates” bin and rename this new sequence using the same name as the format of your project. In our example: “1920x1080_23.98fps_Template01.”

C. Add a single Text Generator and adjust the text generator font, settings, etc.:

1. In the “Browser” window, click on the “Effects” tab.
2. Open the “Video Generator” folder by clicking on the disclosure triangle.
3. Open the “Text” tab by clicking on the disclosure triangle.
4. Double-click the “Outline Text” generator.
5. Choose the “Controls” tab from the “Viewer” window to set the characteristics.

Here are some recommended settings:

Font: Arial Narrow
Style: Plain
Alignment: Center
Size: 23
Tracking: 3
Leading: 0
Aspect: 1
Line Width: 50
Line Softness: 38
Center: 0, 326 (You may need to adjust the center Y point depending on the size of your movie)
Text Color: White
Line Color: Black

D. Overwrite-Edit the Outline Text video generator from the “Browser” window into the very beginning of the sequence timeline.

Step 5:
Save the sequence

InqScribe can export certain types of XML files that FCP 7 can display as subtitled text on top of your original video clip. But first, you need to define a template of the text for InqScribe in a format that matches your project. Refer to InqScribe’s detailed support document on creating a FCP 7 subtitle template when troubleshooting any template issues.

Step 6:
Export the subtitle template sequence as an XML template for use in InqScribe

A. Choose the subtitle template sequence located in the “Subtitle Templates” bin (“1920x1080_23.98fps_Template01,” in our example). Control-click on the title and choose “Export > XML…” from the drop-down menu.

B. Select “Apple XML Interchange Format, version 1” in the export dialog box.

C. Click “OK.”

D. If prompted, Save the project.

E. You’ll then be prompted to save the XML file. For this example, lets call it “ClinicDirector_InqScribeTemplate.xml.”

Step 7:
Send the file to the transcriptionist

In most cases, transcription work is performed by someone other than the filmmaker. The beauty of InqScribe is that it is so easy to use even people who have never subtitled or transcribed before can get the job done efficiently. By marking timecodes for each short phrase, the translator creates the subtitles in InqScribe as well.

It is best to keep the instructions to the translator as simple as possible; you want him/her to focus on translating, not the technical issues. In the next step, the filmmaker will open the translator’s InqScribe file (.inqscr) and make any necessary adjustments. For our workflow, the exchange between translator and filmmaker looks like this:

A. The filmmaker sends the timecode burn-in reference movie and notes to the translator (in our example, the timecode burn-in reference video file that was exported in Step 3):

1. Use a service like Google Drive or Dropbox instead of email to send the video files.
2. If possible, send notes to the translator to provide some background on each clip, such as who the person is in relation to your film, an overview of the questions asked, the setting, etc.

B. The translator launches InqScribe, imports the timecode burn-in reference video, and sets the frame rate of the video (see details below).

C. The translator transcribes the video making sure to put timecode stamps after each short phrase. You want to break up the transcription into many pieces for the purpose of subtitles.

D. After the translator is finished transcribing the video clip, only the .inqscr translated file needs to be sent back to the filmmaker (this file is usually small enough to be attached to an email). Having the source .insqscr file allows you to make last minute tweaks and troubleshoot any exchange issues that may arise.

Step 8:
Export FCP XML from InqScribe

This step picks up after the initial transcription is complete, and assumes that the translator has delivered the completed transcript with plenty of timecode stamps to break up the text into small phrases for subtitles. The filmmaker will repeat many of the steps in InqScribe that the translator has done, just to ensure that everything is in order for the FCP XML export:

A. Launch InqScribe and open the transcript.

B. Be sure the frame rate matches your project:

1. Select the “Transcript Setting” button on the top right of the InqScribe interface.
2. Select the correct frame rate from the transcript settings dialog.

C. Set the Media start time to match the timecode window burn on your video clip:

1. Open the Media Source dialog: Media> Select Media Source.
2. In the dialog box, choose “Start at Custom Time:” from the “Timecode” drop-down, and type in the timecode that is burnt on the opening frame of your video file. This setting will ensure that any new timecode marks you put in will match your timecode.

D. Match the timecode in the transcript to the video timecode. For example, if your transcript timecodes start 0:00:00.00, but the time stamp starts at 0:01:12.00, then you want to adjust the transcript’s timecodes to match your clip’s time.

1. Open the “Transcript Settings” dialog: Transcript > Adjust Timecodes.
2. Choose the “Add” option from the drop-down menu and enter the start time from your video clip’s timecode burn-in window into the timecode field. If your transcript timecode doesn’t starts at 0:00, then enter the difference between the transcript timecode and the clip’s timecode.

NOTE: Unfortunately, FCP can run into problems if the timecode is greater than 12 hours (eg. 12:09:22:15). If the timecode is greater than 12 hours, apply steps C and D AFTER the transcript is exported as an FCP XML.

Tip: Before exporting an XML file, it’s often a good idea to make sure that the timecodes provided by the translator are not out of sequence (this actually happens fairly often) by exporting as HTML first.

E. Export the FCP 7 XML:

1. In InqScribe, select File > Export > Final Cut Pro XML to open the export dialog.
2. Click the “Load From File…” button in the export dialog to choose the template file that was exported from FCP (“ClinicDirector_InqScribeTemplate.xml,” in our example).
3. In the “Target” field, rename the file so you can easily find it (“ClinicDirector_InqScribeExport.xml”). Click the “Export” button.

Tip: Before leaving InqScribe, it’s a good idea to also export a tab-delimited version of the transcript with the proper timecode that is burnt into the timecode window. This can be matched against camera recorded timecode for referencing clips in the future. Again, if your timecode was greater than 12 hours, go back and set the timecode following steps C and D before exporting the tab-delimited version.

Step 9:
Import the Subtitles XML from InqScribe into FCP 7

A. Open your FCP project.
B. Create a new sub bin in the “For Translation” bin of your project and title it “Subtitles Temp.”

1. In the “Browser” window, open the “For Translation” bin.
2. In the “For Translation” bin control-click on an empty area in the far left column and choose “New Bin” from the drop-down menu.

3. Title this bin “Subtitles Temp.”

C. Import the subtitles XML exported from InqScribe (created in Step 6):

1. Choose File > Import > XML… and select the exported XML (“ClinicDirector_InqScribeExport.xml,” in our example).
2. Leave the default settings and click “OK.”

NOTE: In FCP, the XML file exported from InqScribe is renamed automatically to the original template name with the word “InqScribe” at the end and placed in the main project window. For example: “1920x1080_23.98fps_Template01_InqScribe.”

D. Rename this file to what it was when exported from InqScribe by selecting the filename in the FCP project and replacing with: “ClinicDirector_InqScribeExport.”
E. Drag the clip into your “Subtitles Temp” sub bin located in your “For Translation” bin.

Step 10:
Sync the original video clip to your subtitles

A. Open the subtitle sequence you placed in the “Subtitles Temp” bin by double-clicking the title (“ClinicDirector_InqScribeExport,” in our example) and prep the subtitles to be copied and pasted onto your video clip sequence:

1. With the subtitle sequence open, make sure the first frame of the subtitle is extended all the way to the very beginning of the sequence (this will ensure that the sequence stays in sync when copied).

2. Create a new video layer by control-clicking on the far left-hand column in the “Timeline” window above the “V1” label in this sequence and choose “Add Track” from the drop-down menu.

3. Select all of the subtitle slides by choosing Edit > Select All and click -drag them to video track 2 (V2). Be sure that all of the titles are selected and that the selection is kept in sync to the opening of the sequence (there should be no gap between the opening of the sequence and the start of the first subtitle).
4. With all of the titles still selected, choose Edit > Copy.

B. Place the selected subtitle slides on top of the video clip sequence:

1. Open the video sequence to be subtitled from the “For Translation” bin in Step 1. In our example, the sequence “Interview Clinic Director 03” is located in the “For Translation” bin.
2. Create a second video track on the video sequence by control-clicking on the far left-hand column in the “Timeline” window, above the track “V1” label and choose “Add Track” from the drop-down menu.
3. Move the timeline play head to the beginning of the sequence in the “Timeline” window by selecting the “Timeline” window and choosing Mark > Go to > Beginning.
4. With the play head at the beginning of the sequence (to keep in sync) paste the subtitles by choosing Edit >Paste. The subtitles should insert on video track 2 (V2) above the video on (V1).

C. With the “Timecode Reader” filter still active on the original video clip in video track 1 of your sequence (V1), you can cross-reference the timecode with the timecode marks in your original InqScribe transcription to make sure that everything matches.

D. Once you have everything lined up in the sequence, you can hide the “Timecode Reader” filter:

1. Double click the clip in video track 1 (V1) in the “Timeline” window to load the clip in the “Viewer” window.
2. Choose the “Filters” tab in the viewer window and uncheck the box next to “Timecode Reader.”

E. For each additional clip/interview that you need subtitled, you can repeat most of the steps above, re-using the XML template created in Step 3.

Once your subtitled sequence is completed in FCP, you can play through the sequence, tweak the subtitles and drop markers to designate “Subclips” that you want to highlight within the clip to organize the content. When ready, you can mark In and Out points from segments of this sequence and edit them into your main edit sequence as you begin to build your film.

As stated earlier, this tutorial is based on an on-line/full-resolution workflow. If you plan on using an off-line workflow (such as logging and capturing offline RT first and then converting to a higher ProRes later) the workflow is the same, except you will need to conform the sequence to the full resolution media. The beauty of this FCP/InqScribe workflow is that it relies on FCP’s text generator, which will rebuild the subtitles to match the resolution of whatever FCP sequence you copy and paste them into (no re-exporting from InqScribe/FCP required).

Read more about:
• The process of using the “Media Tool” in FCP7 to conform ProRes Proxy media to Full-res media in your project. (PDF)

• FCP7 Offline/Online workflows.

For additional support on using InqScribe and Final Cut Pro, review the FCP section of the InqScribe online user guide and the FCP section of the InqScribe Knowledge Base.

A final word about subtitles

Good subtitle work is subtle and done in a way that doesn’t distract from the emotion of the story. Here are a few tips to turn you into a subtitling master in FCP:

• When possible, stack the text into two lines on the screen, but no more than two lines at a time. Subtitles are quicker to read in chunks rather than one long string.

• When two people speak during one title, the second speaker’s text goes on the second line with a “-” before the text:

Hey Chad, do you like these subtitles?
-Yes, of course I do, Ben. Thanks for asking!

• Look for times when you can reasonably break one really full subtitle slide into several smaller, less full screens.
• Keep in mind that the average viewer will only be able to read 11 characters per second. This can help you determine how long a subtitle should be onscreen and how much text should be on each subtitle slide.
• In FCP, consider adding 3-5 frame spacing between each subtitle slide to increase readability.

The timing and cadence of subtitles is an art in and of itself and goes hand-in-hand with the video edit. Because of this, the final touches on your subtitles will most likely be done back in FCP as your film editing and post-production process unfolds. As other elements are added (SFX, music, etc.), you may need to finesse the duration of one title, break another into shorter ones, or stack lines on top of each other. That’s really the beauty of this system: Once the titles are in FCP you can edit the text and duration without any loss in quality to the text or the video.

I certainly hope this tutorial has been helpful. As always, there are many different workflows and methods to get the job done. Regardless of method, I hope this tutorial has impressed upon you the importance of taking the time to be organized during each step of any workflow. As beginning filmmakers, you will be required to wear multiple hats (director, editor, producer, etc.) and staying organized is the only way to efficiently balance all of these tasks, especially as your projects get bigger.

About the author
Chad Braham is a media producer with over 13 years of professional broadcast and multimedia experience. He freelances as a videographer, video editor, and audio producer on projects ranging from :30 TV spots to documentary films. When not spending his days and nights in a dark editing bay, Chad (for some reason) enjoys following the Chicago Cubs.

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 in 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 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.

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

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 timecode 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.

Guest Blog: Using InqScribe for a Documentary on Native American Health

We just love it when InqScribe is put to use for a worthy cause. As part of our ongoing series that highlights how our folks are using the tool, we’ve invited Kitty Farmer of Watersong Productions to tell us about her advocacy work for Native Americans, and how InqScribe helped streamline her workflow.

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

What’s In The Heart

By Kitty Farmer, Watersong Productions, LLC

I am an advocate/activist who is new to filmmaking. My first experience with transcribing was starting and stopping the DVD player on my computer! As anyone can imagine, this was laborious, tedious and took forever. Last summer, a colleague recommended Inquirum’s amazing software. After spending time with the product, I can say in all honesty, I love to transcribe! It’s truly a remarkable product. My director, Dustinn Craig, White Mountain Apache, who has had several films broadcast on PBS, was thrilled to learn about it when we spent time together filming this last weekend.

Photo credit: Alejandro Lopez

We use InqScribe to log our video footage, especially to transcribe interviews. The director uses these transcripts to make edit decisions. During editting, we use the timecodes embedded in the transcripts to be able to quickly jump to clips we want to review.

Leonard Little Finger, Photo © Deanne Fitzmaurice

We are producing a 20-minute trailer to Native American Public Telecommunications (NAPT) for a grant to create a documentary film to educate the general public and policy makers about the history and reasons why American Indians, despite treaties with the U.S. government that mandate basic social services, have the worst health disparities of any population in the nation. In addition, we highlight some remarkable people who through their resiliency and ingenuity have created programs and initiatives that are healing their communities. The film is sponsored by the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board (formerly the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board).

Help see the film finished: contribute on Indie Go Go

Film Web Site: What’s in the Heart

What’s in the Heart from Kitty Farmer on Vimeo.

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Kitty Farmer