The Best Prompts for Editing Documentaries

Rough cut

1. Log everything

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   Log every interview with a summary and timestamped topics, and log the b-roll by what each shot shows. Tell me when both logs are ready.

   Eddie writes interview and b-roll logs and reports the stage. Download them for your editor, including as an Avid ALE, from the Export menu.

2. Tiered selects

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   Rate every interview answer and export a selects timeline for [Premiere Pro]: the strongest answers about [theme] on track 3, other strong answers on track 2, everything usable on track 1.

   Eddie rates the transcript against your tiers and writes one tier per track.

3. Assemble from the outline

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   Assemble a [25]-minute first cut that follows my attached outline: act one [setup], act two [conflict], act three [resolution]. Use the strongest answers for each beat, breathy pacing.

   Eddie matches each beat to the strongest answers and reports beats with thin material.

Highlights

1. Everything on one theme

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   Find every answer, from every interview, about [theme]. Group them by speaker with timestamps.

   Eddie searches all the transcripts and returns the passages by speaker.

2. Moments beyond the words

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   Analyse the interviews for moments where someone's voice breaks, they pause for a long time or they look away, and list them by speaker.

   Eddie records emotional moments a transcript cannot carry, with timestamps, after quoting the credits.

3. A festival trailer

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   Make a [2]-minute trailer from the most powerful lines across the film, with [the archive footage] under the opening and breathy pacing.

   Eddie builds the trailer from your selected material and lays your footage under it.

Social clips

1. Festival and social clips

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   Make [3] vertical clips of [60] seconds from scenes that stand alone, with documentary-style captions.

   Eddie builds 9:16 edits from self-contained passages with captions in the documentary look.

Captions

1. Subtitles for interviews

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   Add documentary-look captions to every interview segment, and correct the spelling of [names and places] in the transcript first.

   Eddie fixes the words, keeping timings, then adds captions in the documentary look.

B-roll

Eddie uses your own b-roll first. Where you have nothing that fits, it searches stock footage: free Pexels clips, plus your own Shutterstock catalog if you connect it. When neither has the shot, it can generate a short b-roll clip. It quotes the credits first and generates nothing until you agree. You can also tell it to use only your own footage.

1. Observational footage only

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   Lay [the observational footage] over [speaker] talking about [subject], and [the archive] over [the memory]. Use only our own footage; do not use stock or generated shots.

   Eddie places your own footage over the matching answers and uses nothing else.

Multicam

1. Two-camera interviews

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   Sync the [A] and [B] cameras and the [lav] for every interview as multicam groups, using the lav audio.

   Eddie finds and syncs every camera angle across the project in one pass and proposes the groups before applying them.

Export

1. Story notes before the fine cut

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   Watch the assembly and give me notes on structure and pacing with timestamps. Tell me where the audience will lose track of who someone is.

   Eddie renders the assembly and returns timestamped notes from a video-understanding model.

2. Into your editor

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   Export the assembly as a [Premiere Pro] project with the interview angles kept as multicam.

   Eddie writes a native project with real multicam clips, pointing at your original media.

3. Selects for one person

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   Rate everything [name] says in their interviews and export a selects timeline for [Premiere Pro]: their best answers on track 2 and the rest on track 1.

   Eddie rates only the sources you scope it to and writes one tier per track.