The language of the cutting room.
Plain-English definitions of the craft terms behind interview-driven film — written by working editors, for anyone learning the room's vocabulary.
Paper Edit
Building the film from transcripts before you build it on a timeline — documentary editing's oldest trick.
Stringout
Every select laid end-to-end in one long timeline: the raw material of the first assembly.
How to Make a Stringout
The step-by-step method — with the exact mechanics in Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve.
Paper Edit from a Transcript
Transcribe, mark, structure in text, then turn the page into a timeline — the full workflow, step by step.
Radio Cut
The audio-first assembly that has to work with your eyes closed before a frame of picture matters.
Selects
The moments worth keeping — and the systems editors use to mark, organize, and find them again.
Sound Bite
The quotable moment, from broadcast news to documentary — what makes a bite usable, and how long is too long.
Rough Cut
Assembly, rough cut, fine cut, picture lock — where each stage ends and the next begins.
Transcript-Based Editing
Editing video by editing text — where the approach shines, and where it honestly can't take you.
Speaker Diarization
How software figures out who spoke when — and why crosstalk makes it hard.
FCPXML
Final Cut Pro's interchange format: what it carries, how versions differ, and how tools round-trip through it.
Multicam & Sync Clips
How interview shoots keep angles and audio locked together — and what that means for transcription and round-trips.
Doza Assist runs the paper-edit pass on your Mac — transcription, selects, story analysis, and export to your NLE.
Free trial: every feature on your first 2 minutes — no account, no card · 30-day money-back guarantee · Requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or later)