Before you start using Limecraft, please make sure to get an understanding of key terms, including clips and subclips, collections, scripts and transcripts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Clip: what you ingest

The clip is an audio or video file you upload in the browser, a watchfolder, via Limecraft Edge, or otherwise. If you are using Edge, things are a bit more complicated as a "clip" might consist of multiple files. Apart from clips ingested by the user of by an ingest service, additional clips can be rendered. Rendered clips may have watermarks or subtitles burned-in.

Clips can have the following media types:

  • Video
  • Audio

Apart from audio or video clips, you can upload as well other types of files, i.e. files that not necessarily contain audio or video, including:

  • Still pictures, upon ingest of still images, the IPTC metadata is processed
  • Subtitle files: subtitles can be uploaded as such, or imported as subtitles to an existing clip
  • Script or screenplay: using the screenplay app, you can import scripts in final draft forma
  • Document: any other type of file will be treated as a document. Flow does not touch it, but you can always download it

Related reading


2. Subclip: part of a clip

A subclip represents a part of a clip, identified by such clip, a start timecode, and an end timecode.

A subclip can contain the following types of information:

  • Comment – created by a user. It can contain descriptive information (when logging), but it can also be used to discuss part of a clip. It can even contain a quote from the clips’ transcript;
  • Transcription – speech transcript of a part of the clip. Either created automatically by our speech recognition service, or manually in the Transcriber application, or a combination of both.

A subclip is the smallest element which can be found using search. In a collection (*), you can organise subclips of different clips and in fact create a first rough cut edit.

(*) You can also use a scene or a story part instead of a collection

3. Collection: an ordered group of clips and subclips

You can add clips and subclips to collections. Clips and subclips can be part of multiple collections at the same time.

You can rearrange the order of the clips and subclips in a collection. When you do this, the collection becomes a shot list, i.e. the first rough cut or pre-cut of your edit. You can export the collection to all common video editing software including Apple Final Cut X, Adobe Premiere Pro, or Avid Media Composer.

Also, collections can be shared with people outside of your production.

Recommended reading

4. Collection Group: an ordered group of collections

Collections are grouped in Collection Groups. A collection group can also be exported to edit.

5. Story - an A/V script

A story is built using the Story Builder app and consists of story parts. Each story part contains an audio column and a video column.

Similar to a collection, clips and subclips can be assigned to a story part.

6. Screenplay - a fiction script

A screenplay is built using the Screenplay app and consists of scenes. The scene consists of dialogue, actions and other traditional fiction scene elements.

The Screenplay app can also import your existing fiction scripts in Final Draft, Adobe Story or CeltX format.

Similar to a collection, clips and subclips can be assigned to a scene.

7. Transcript - Written Version of the Spoken Word

Transcription in the process of turning the spoken words in timed text, and the transcript is the written version of the speech elements in a media file. 

When using Limecraft to transcribe interviews or spoken audio, each single word has a specific timecode and confidence score. Thus the transcript is synchronised to the media. The Transcriber app lets you create and post-edit transcripts. If the quality of the audio is sufficient, you can rely on Automatic Speech Recognition to automate the process (AI transcription). In other cases, the transcription application will assist you in manually transcribing the content efficiently.

The transcription process results in one or more subclips or sound bytes, with the fragments of written text attached to it. As a journalist or archive producer, this allows you to efficiently search for the right fragments in vast collections of content.