Documentary Project - Transcibing

When making a documentary there comes a time which everyone dislikes, Transcription, we had to transcribe the interviews we had gotten in order to make the paper edit.

To transcribe an interview you must first insert the timecode, then type out every word spoken by the person on camera, separating different people as well, this allows for a quick frame of reference for looking up certain parts of the interview. its important to update the time code regularly, I did it when someone else spoke or if there was a pause in the audio. If i were to have a whole page which lasts five minutes before changing the timecode that would be a few minutes of wading through the clip the editor would have to do.
Firstly I think transcription is a great idea, it allows for the editor to find a quote or subject, quickly and easily and then using the corresponding timecode to find the section that way rather than watching through the whole video.

This cuts down on the amount of time it takes for the edit and streamlines the entire process of making a rough cut, you can also edit the documentary without touching a computer in a way.

However it takes a lot of time, I consider myself average in type speed typically typing at more than 50 words a minute. However listening to someone speak and typing as they do so is much harder and took a lot of getting used to even through using tools like Google's Transcribe

Which allows me to half the speed of the audio to make it easier to type, it also had tools which allowed for big words to be automatically inserted, such as putting HM would change to Holocaust Memorial, It also had a shortcut to insert the timecode which helped a great deal.

I was averaging 10-15 minutes of audio per hour doing this and having to keep pausing the audio the catch up as Kamran and the interviewees spoke quite fast and even at half speed were getting away from me.


I had over an hours worth of interviews to transcribe... I spent two evenings doing this and found it strangely tiring as my eyes would get sore and I would get a headache after a few hours.

 


I typed over 10,000 words for two and a half interviews which took me around 8-10 hours in total.

I can understand why there are entire companies dedicated to transcribing and its typically an entry level job when starting in the documentary industry.

Its something that I will have to get used to if i am wanting to go further down this career path and whilst unbelievably boring its a necessary and important job.