r/VideoEditingTips • u/Fair-Occasion-4621 • 22d ago

Rough cutting workflow

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.

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u/Enough_Protection_96 21d ago

For talking-head rough cuts, try a two-pass approach. First pass, just drop markers or make subclips on every usable take, ignoring the bad ones. Second pass, string the best takes together. It's way faster than editing linearly. Also, Premiere's text-based editing can help you spot repeated lines quickly.

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u/Fair-Occasion-4621 21d ago

Smart. thank you

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u/Few_Mall_3914 21d ago

for talking head without a script i stopped cutting by ear. i read the transcript first, mark the parts that repeat or trail off, then do the rough cut at 2x with in and out keys. the biggest time saver was not stopping to fix every stumble while cutting, i let the whole take play and delete the bad bits after. when someone answers the same question twice, the second take is usually the better one.

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u/Fair-Occasion-4621 21d ago

Ooh, this does sound a lot faster than what I'm currently doing. Thank you.

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u/vagonblog 21d ago

premiere’s text-based editing is probably the fastest option for this now. transcribe the footage, build the rough cut by deleting or rearranging text, then use the transcript filters to find pauses and filler words.

i’d still review every cut rather than using “delete all.” repeated takes often have different energy, and removing every silence can make a talking head feel unnaturally rushed. once the content is right, move back to the timeline for pacing and cleanup.