Using Descript

Pros:

• Intuitive controls
• Edit video by editing its transcription

Cons:

• Transcription can occasionally be inaccurate

When I record videos, I often end up saying far more than I actually need—sometimes 10 to 20 times more. This leads to long, tedious editing sessions that I’d rather avoid. If you're like me, Descript is a game changer that can save you hours of editing time.

Descript works by generating a transcript of your video and automatically dividing it into scenes. Instead of manually trimming footage, you simply highlight the portions of the transcript you want to cut, and Descript handles the video edits for you. This allows you to edit your video like you would edit a text document—no more jumping between clips to see if the cut is smooth.

Once the script is cleaned up, you can further organize your video into scenes by typing a forward slash into the transcript. This splits the video timeline, allowing you to easily add elements like B-roll by selecting the scene and pulling in stock video from the media library without leaving the editor.

Descript makes adding jump cuts, visual elements, and sound effects simple and efficient, as you can mark your script and fill in enhancements later. This workflow is a massive time-saver. If you prefer traditional timeline editing, Descript includes that option as well at the bottom of the screen.

With these editing capabilities, you can record freely, knowing you won’t need to scrub through hours of footage to find the best parts. Beyond basic editing, Descript's AI-powered Underlord toolkit refines audio quality, auto-switches multicam views, and generates highlights or clips for short-form social media posts.

For even greater efficiency, you can integrate Descript with Zapier to automate parts of your video creation workflow. Automations like creating transcripts from Google Drive files or saving transcripts to Google Docs can save you even more time and effort. Zapier connects Descript with thousands of apps, enabling seamless workflow automation across platforms like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft.

Pricing:

• Free plan: 1 hour of transcription
• Hobbyist plan: $19/user/month, offering 10 transcription hours, no watermark, and 1080p export quality