It’s an entirely new way to edit video, says Simon Says, introducing Simon Says Assemble, a new product and significant expansion to the Simon Says platform. This new addition, the company says, brings the story forward with modern tools and narrative-driven editing capabilities that enable collaboration and speed up video workflows.
According to the information made available by the company, Assemble enables production teams and clients to quickly and easily lock story from the web. Import and transcribe interview footage and dailies; highlight the key soundbites in the transcript; then easily drag and drop the soundbite text into the desired sequence to create the spine of the story. Share, annotate, and sign off in one flow.
With story locked, the editor can export to their preferred NLE – Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, Apple Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve – where the XML auto-magically re-creates the assembled timeline and seamlessly relinks the media at the correct in and out points. Eliminated is the tedium of scrubbing through audio to find a soundbite, flipping between highlights on a transcript, implementing edit notes, and the back-and-forth of endless exports trying to get signoff. With Simon Says Assemble, the editor is liberated to do what she does best: focus on shot selections, pacing, music, and all the creative elements that bring a story to life.
“Teams can now edit, discuss, and sign-off on rough cuts from the web as simply as editing text,” comments Shamir Allibhai, founder and CEO of Simon Says. “Transcription was the stepping stone to Simon Says Assemble, which empowers everyone involved in a project to find and order the meaningful parts of the video to create an impactful narrative. Assemble brings down technical and cost barriers and frees the story from the silos of an NLE.”
Shamir adds: “I deeply believe in video tech that increases simplicity and efficiency and that when you enable that, you bring in more creators, with their own unique voices, who will push forward the boundaries of storytelling and even the craft itself. Simon Says is grateful to be a part of the workflows of tens of thousands of the most indomitable creative teams on the planet.”
With Simon Says Assemble, building the story now takes minutes instead of hours or days and all before even stepping into the edit suite. Here are the Simon Says Assemble key features:
- Supports nearly all file formats and codecs
- Import from the web or natively from within Final Cut Pro X, DaVinci Resolve, and Adobe Premiere Pro
- Transcribe and translate in 100 languages
- Search and highlight soundbites directly in the transcript to add them to the timeline. Order and reorder soundbites freely as you preview playback.
- Collaborate with team members anywhere
- Export to every major NLE and DAW to finalize the edit; the timeline/sequence seamlessly recreates
- Export to subtitles, captions, and FCP titles
- Metadata including file location, framerate, and start timecode are preserved through to export
Want a real-world example? Damien LeVeck, owner/producer of Skubalon, Inc. and production partner with major networks including CBS, ABC and NBC, is currently using Simon Says for a documentary chronicling the history of skateboarding, starring the biggest names in the sport. He comments, “Transcription is an invaluable part of any unscripted or documentary workflow. And, as budgets contract, the need for affordable solutions becomes greater. Simon Says is the perfect AI transcription service, not only because of the quality of transcription and low cost, but also because it offers the widest array of integrations with editing applications.”
He adds, “The recent addition of Simon Says Assemble further streamlines our workflow, allowing our team to send stringouts and radio cuts to editors faster, which enables quicker turnaround on tight deadlines. It’s further proof that Simon Says gets better and better by the day.”
The company believes that Simon Says Assemble is the tool for the modern-day video creative. It’s a solution designed to empower today’s visual storyteller, from the one-man-band to production companies, from corporate teams to agencies working with demanding clients, and everyone in between. Simon Says Assemble is ideal for the following scenarios:
- Marketing videos – from promos to product launches, production companies need to work closely with their client
- Corporate videos – for in-house teams, production companies, and agencies tasked with shooting and producing events, conferences, launches and training videos
- Social media videos – for creators and teams distributing on Instagram, YouTube and everything in between
- Documentaries, reality, and other non-fiction – for production companies who have hours of footage to comb through and need to find the most impactful quotes to tell the story
- News, podcasts, interviews, testimonials and so many more scenarios where identifying the narrative’s best soundbites or removing extraneous audio is key
See Simon Says Assemble in action or test it out firsthand. To get started, go to simonsays.ai and sign up, transcribe your media (free credit to new users), go into Video Assemble mode, and start cutting! Existing Simon Says users have immediate access to Assemble via their dashboard, giving them even more power.