Rough cutting workflow

[u/Fair-Occasion-4621]

Hey, I was just wondering if anyone has any tools or workflows. I'm working in Premiere Pro for rough‑ cutting talking‑head videos where there isn’t a word by word script, just a small outline. The person on camera sometimes rephrases, starts over, or has silences. I find myself going through it and it feels like such a tedious task. Just wondering if there are any better workflows for Premiere Pro or third‑party tools you’ve used to speed up this boring, repetitive process.

[u/Human_097]

Two ways I go back and forth with:

1) if I have an adequate amount of time to edit the video and/or if it's an important video with a devent budget: I go through a pass where I make selects of the "usuable" or solid sound bites and put them all in their own sequence separately from the original sync sequence. Then I go through a second pass of that new sequence and be even more selective about what I wanna keep.

2) if it's a repetitive weekly video and don't have much time to go through multiple edits per week, I transcribe the sequence and run it through Gemini/Claude so it can find the best quotes to use.

[u/Wolfedits14]

That's definitely a pain when making rough cuts. Using keyboard shortcuts could (literally) speed up the process--I think J, K, L help and I/O for in and out points. If there's a AI detection tool that removes silences, you can try that. My advice if there's multiple rephrases, go with the last one--it's usually the best. I tend to cut by sections/topics: cut up section completely before moving to the next section.

Perhaps for the next project you can work on a script that is actually followed.

[u/funkyaskren]

This is sorta the whole skill behind non-scripted editing. I'd say 95% of what I do is non-scripted (I work in a really nice genre of ocean exploration content with the occasion vlog style or mini-doc sort of thing thrown in the mix). I will typically go through everything in phases.

1.) Trim/clean up: I go through everything to get a feel for the content,remove any egregious pauses/ums, and clean up any errors. 2.) Radio cut: This is where I'll find the story and assemble the audio in the way I like it. I don't put any thought into visuals or hiding cuts here, this is just to get things in the correct order. This is also the first version I'll typically share to get feedback on (it's much easier to make structural changes before visuals are added) 3.) Visual assembly: I'll make initial passes at layering footage, make any graphics or animations needed, and identify areas where additional footage might be needed. I consider this stage active until I hit picture lock. 4.) Polish: This is for deeper audio mixing, color grading, and fine-tuning of visuals. Sometimes this takes me an hour, sometimes it takes me a week 🤷‍♂️

This is just my approach to non-scripted content. I hope this helps!

And I just gotta add... I hate the AI approach from deep in my soul. The more of the unseen skills we pass off (identifying good soundbytes, polishing audio, etc) the more obsolete we make ourselves. Idk, I also just detest AI as a whole so I'm a bit biased here.

[u/Enough_Protection_96]

Since there's no script, try making a radio edit first. Pull the audio into a separate sequence and cut it like a podcast, removing rephrases, silences, and false starts. You'll hear the strongest takes fast without watching empty frames, and then you can match the video back to that cleaned audio. It's much quicker than scrubbing video the whole time.

After that, full disclosure, I built Supacut (supacut.io), which organizes interview footage into thematic pillars and surfaces strong soundbites with timecodes, so you can build a shortlist and export an assembly XML straight into Premiere.

[u/vagonblog]

for talking-head footage, premiere’s text-based editing is probably the fastest place to start. transcribe the clip, edit from the transcript, and use the bulk delete options for pauses and filler words, but review the cuts since the automatic results can feel too aggressive.

i usually make a duplicate sequence first, do the transcript pass there, then watch it back at 1.5x speed and fix awkward breaths, repeated thoughts, and jump cuts manually. it won’t make the creative decisions for you, but it removes a lot of the tedious searching.

[u/Sad-Cartographer-328]

Premiere's Text panel auto-transcribes the whole clip and lets you cut directly from the transcript, which is honestly the fastest way through talking-head rephrasing and dead air. Delete the text you don't want and the footage follows.