With natural language searches, analysis of spoken language, and use of metadata, Media Intelligence in Adobe Premiere Pro helps documentary editors rapidly find clips to help them shape a story.

Media Intelligence analyzes video footage using on-device artificial intelligence to find images, spoken words, and metadata, including camera type, shoot date, or location. It is a revolutionary tool that is perfect for documentary projects that frequently feature varied footage from interviews, b-roll, and archive sources.

Locate Particular Events

Documentaries flourish on real, evocative images—like “a tearful interview close-up” or “aerial view of a skater at dusk”—that often require sorting hours of footage to find. Using natural language, Media Intelligence finds clips based on visual content, such as objects, scenes, or lighting, and lets editors type descriptive phrases into the search panel in Premiere Pro. Searching “elderly woman speaking in a park,” for instance, finds pertinent b-roll without exact keywords, saving hours and allowing editors to concentrate on the narrative.

Identify Important Interviews

Many documentaries center on interviews, but finding particular quotes usually requires painstaking searching clip by clip. Now, editors can generate transcripts using the Speech to Text tool in Premiere Pro, which converts spoken dialogue into text. Searching terms like “subject discusses documentary editing” allows editors to quickly locate exact moments in interviews or voiceovers, simplifying the process of creating a strong narrative arc.

Arranging Diverse Video with Metadata

Documentary projects sometimes mix footage from several sources—interviews shot on a Sony A7S, drone shots from a DJI Mavic, or archive clips from decades past. Media Intelligence combines into its search powers metadata, including camera type, location, or shoot date.

Without depending on outside logs or folder systems, editors can easily search for “clips from June 2024 shot in New York” or “RED camera footage,” facilitating access to and organization of footage.

Real-World Advantages for Documentary Filmmakers

Media Intelligence lets documentary editors concentrate on creating emotionally relevant stories by automating clip searches. Tools like these “remove some of the tedium,” notes editor Ernie Gilbert, and that enables editors to prioritize creative decisions over administrative chores. Media Intelligence allows a documentary team working on a project with terabytes of footage to rapidly pull pertinent clips, experiment with narrative structures, and hone pacing. It removes the hassle of hand-searching clips and frees editors to concentrate on what really counts: telling powerful stories.

See Adobe’s materials at helpx.adobe.com for further information.