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a. Download a copy of the unedited text transcript of the movie.
b. Open the text file in a text editor such as Simpletext. You should see something like this:
The story I'm going to tell you is a folk tale called two ways to count to ten, and this is a folk tale from Liberia, West Africa. And now for our story.
A long time ago, deep in the forests of Liberia, King Leopard began to think about the future. He thought, "I'm getting old and one day when I get real old, I'm going to get sick and die". Now a wise king would not wait until he was old to pick a successor, someone who could take his place as king after he died. No, a wise king would pick his successor while still young and healthy. But how could King Leopard choose when he loved all the members of the animal kingdom the same? How could he choose one over the other?
King Leopard sat beneath a tree and started to think. After a while, he came up with a plan. He summoned his messengers and sent them out into the forests of Liberia. He told them to ask all of the animals of the animal kingdom to come to his palace. He was going to throw a big party and at this party, he was going to make an important announcement. So away the messengers ran, to all four corners of the forest.
c. Line breaks will be used by Quicktime Pro to segment the text into blocks that will be synchronized to the audio track. Read the text and introduce line breaks at natural pauses in the flow of the text. Do not include any more text than will fit in the text box defined in Step 1. Your edited text should look something like this:
The story
I'm going to tell you
is a folk tale
called two ways to count to ten,
and this is a folk tale
from Liberia, West Africa.
And now for our story...
Save the file after you have introduced the line breaks. Select this text to see or to download an example.
d. You will now import the modified text file into Quicktime Player. Quicktime Player will format the text and create notations that will be used later to synchronize the text. Launch Quicktime Player if it is not open. Go to the "File" menu and select "Import". Select the file created in c. Click "Convert" and save the movie. Select this text to see or to download an example.
e. Next, you will transfer the newly created text track to the original movie. Because the length of the text track doesn't match the length of the original movie, you will use the "add scaled" command to roughly synchronize the text to the audio. If the original, unedited movie is not open, open it while keeping the newly created text track movie also open. While holding down the control key, go to the "File" menu and select "Open Movie in New Player". Both the original movie and the new text only movie should then be opened. Activate the text only movie by clicking on it. Go to the "Edit" menu and select "Select All". then go to the "Edit" menu and select "Copy". Activate the original movie. Hold down the "Shift" and "Option" keys. Go to the "Edit" menu and select "Add Scaled". This step will add the text track from your text movie to the original movie. The "Add Scaled" option will space the text so that the first words appear at the start of the movie and the final words at the end of the movie. Play the movie and see how the text is roughly synchronized with the speech.
f. Finally, you need to create a new text transcript that can be edited so that the text is more accurately synchronized. To do this, you need to export the text track. But first, save your new, roughly synchronized movie, to a new file. You will need to use this movie in the final steps. Go to the "File" menu, select "Save As". Save the movie with a unique name. To export the text transcript, go to the "File" menu, select "Export" and select the following options:
Provide the file with a unique name and click "Save". Select this text to see or to download an example.
All materials © Jim Angus, 2000.