Field notes

Record through your earbuds, and more from this week

Record through a Bluetooth mic, rename your speakers, number every marker in your PDF, and let your editor make the AI cut.

A place for all your transcripts

Every Earwig you record lands in the web app on its own. Read it, mark it, comment, build a paper edit and share it with your editor, from any browser.

Log anywhere, even with no signal

Record and mark a whole shoot with no internet at all. The words appear on the phone, your marks keep the camera’s timecode, and nothing leaves the phone until you say so.

The Earwig plugins are now on Windows

The DaVinci Resolve plugin and the Premiere Pro panel are on Windows from today. Same sign-in as the app: your email and a code.

Why aren't all your transcripts in one place?

How to build a paper edit from documentary rushes

A paper edit is how you find the story before you touch a timeline. Here is the process I use on documentary interviews, and what to hand an editor at the end of it.

XML timecode problems: why your edit lands a frame out

An XML does not carry timecode the way most people think. What actually breaks between set and edit: frame rate flags, drop frame, relinking and one-frame drift.

I forgot to do this during the most important interview of my career

A 6am shoot, a well-known journalist, and the worst feeling I have ever had on a set. This is what I learned.

Documentary is just words with pictures?

Strip documentary back and it is words with pictures, yet we shoot as if the image comes first. A documentary PD on what changes when you treat the film as a language, and where that thinking should stop.

You can talk to Earwig now

We've added voice activation so you can make selects while you film

Documentary has always had a transcript gap

A running log of everything you filmed has never really existed. Why documentary is a blind run to the edit, and what changes when every shoot leaves you a word-perfect record you can actually use.