How We Turn Raw Footage into Broadcast Files While the Story Moves

Rapid Edit and Delivery is the part of pulsecra that sits between a camera card and a transmission slot. Our editors take material from our own crews or from yours, cut it to the running time you give us, add captions where they are needed and export a file in the format your playout system expects. The point is not speed for its own sake. A package that arrives six minutes before the bulletin is only useful if it is accurate, legal to broadcast and plays first time.

This autumn we have been refining how that desk is staffed and how work is handed over. Tom Pritchard, our senior video editor, now owns every job from ingest to delivery, so the person who sees the first rushes is the person who signs off the final file. That has cut the small misunderstandings that used to cost us time, such as a graphic spelled two ways or a clip exported at the wrong frame rate.

• Editing to the running time and style you specify
• Captioning and on-screen text checked against your script
• Export to the formats and specifications your broadcaster asks for

Most lost minutes happen before an editor opens the first clip. Cards wait in a bag, files arrive without notes, and nobody is sure which interview is the one the producer wants. We have changed our intake so that every job starts with a short written brief: the story slug, the running time, the deadline, the delivery format and the names of anyone who must be captioned correctly.

Where our crew is on location, Daniel Okafor or another operator logs the strongest shots as they film and sends those notes with the footage. The editor then builds the first assembly from the best material rather than watching everything in order. It is a simple habit, but on a developing story it often decides whether the first version goes out in time for the lunchtime bulletin.

Captions are where hurried work most often goes wrong. A misheard surname or a wrongly attributed quote does more damage than a late file, and it is much harder to put right once it has been broadcast. Our rule is that every caption and lower-third is checked against the supplied script or a second listen to the interview before the file is released.

We also keep a running list of names, place spellings and job titles for each regular client, so that a council officer or local police spokesperson is spelled the same way in every package we deliver. When a spelling cannot be confirmed in the time available, we flag it to you in the delivery note instead of guessing, and you decide whether to broadcast with it or hold the line.

• Names checked against the script or the recording
• Client style list kept for regular commissions
• Unconfirmed details flagged in the delivery note

Every broadcaster has its own technical specification for loudness, frame rate, resolution, file wrapper and caption format. Ours is a library of delivery presets built up over several years of filing to regional newsrooms, and Tom checks each export against the right preset before it leaves the building. If your specification has changed, send us the new document and we will update the preset rather than rely on memory.

Delivery itself is the last mile and the one that people forget. A finished file that sits in an upload queue is not a finished job. We confirm receipt with your desk, keep a copy of what was sent, and hold the project for an agreed period so that a correction or a shorter cut can be turned round without starting from the cards again.

The best thing an editor or producer can do for a fast turnaround is to decide early what the package is about. A single sentence describing the story, a target length and the names of the people who matter lets us start cutting while the rest of the material is still arriving. Without that, we lose the first stretch of the clock to questions that could have been answered in the original message.

It also helps to tell us where the story is likely to change. If a statement is expected within the hour or a second interview is still being arranged, we can leave a gap in the edit and slot the new material in rather than rebuilding the package. We would rather know about the uncertainty at the start than discover it at the point of export.

• One line on the angle of the story
• Target running time and transmission deadline
• Names and titles for captions
• Any material still to come

Some newsrooms use us for a single busy week, others call us whenever their own edit suites are full. Either way, the first job is usually the slowest, because we are learning your house style, your graphics and your delivery route. By the third or fourth package the process is quicker, and we can often work from a two-line message.

If you would like to see how the desk could fit alongside your own team, use the contact page to describe the kind of material you handle and when it normally arrives. We will reply in writing with how we would handle it and what it would cost, so that you can judge it against your own turnaround before committing to anything.