How Skydance Sports streamlined 1,000 hours of multilingual footage with HappyScribe
Skydance Sports, a division of Skydance Media, is renowned for producing high-quality scripted and unscripted sports content. However, the team faced an unprecedented challenge with a new tribute documentary, spanning nearly 1,000 hours of footage in English, Spanish, and a Southern European dialect.
“We had around 100 days of shooting, and each day was probably around eight hours of footage… it’s between 800 and 1,000 hours, plus decades of archival material in languages most of our team didn’t speak. It was one of the most complex projects we’ve ever worked on”, shared Diane Grandchamp, Assistant Editor.
“It was one of the most complex projects we’ve ever worked on.”
Too much footage, too little time
The volume of footage was staggering, and every clip had to be transcribed and translated for story producers to piece together narratives and create paper cuts, as well as subtitled to enable editors to work directly with the video footage.
"The transcription tools we used and looked at were really great when we uploaded a one-minute video. But when we tried to upload the 10-hour daily footage, they would just crash", admitted Diane.
Beyond the volume, the multilingual nature of the project added another layer of difficulty. Existing transcription tools they used couldn’t keep up: while they handled Spanish passably, dialects required extensive manual corrections, significantly delaying the process. As Diane explained, “The tools we used in the past were horrible: unreliable, difficult to use, and prone to crashing. Some other tools we looked at were really good for English, but not for other languages”.
“The tools we used in the past were horrible: unreliable, difficult to use, and prone to crashing. Some other tools we looked at were really good for English, but not for other languages.”
The team solved inaccuracies with Spanish and Southern European dialects with freelance translators, however this added complexity, inconsistencies in delivery, and delayed the processes even more. “Some translators took weeks to deliver a single day’s footage, and some translations were better than others which slowed everything down," said Diane. "We were spending most of our time managing translators, while editors were left waiting for the content and unable to start editing until they knew what was happening,” she concluded.
A game-changer solution
To address these challenges, the team turned to Happy Scribe… and everything changed. “Happy Scribe transformed our workflow, allowing us to focus on what we do best while knowing the transcription and translation were in expert hands,” said Diane.
“Happy Scribe transformed our workflow, allowing us to focus on what we do best while knowing the transcription and translation were in expert hands.”
What made the difference? Happy Scribe not only excelled at handling large volumes of footage, but its AI transcription capabilities provided accurate results for Spanish and offered a solid starting point for dialects. For more complex linguistic intricacies, the seamless integration of human review ensured precision. As Diane admitted: “Happy Scribe was the only platform that could handle our volume and deliver consistent results.”
“Happy Scribe was the only platform that could handle our volume and deliver consistent results.”
Another key factor was reliability. Happy Scribe consistently delivered high-quality transcripts and translations on time, even when faced with demanding deadlines. “Knowing that I could hand over footage and get reliable, editing-ready results has been a lifesaver,” Diane shared.
However, the biggest breakthrough for Diane’s team was the ability to outsource the entire transcription and translation process to Happy Scribe. Rather than spending countless hours managing freelance translators and troubleshooting issues, they could rely on Happy Scribe to handle the project management aspect of the workflow. This freed up the team to focus on their strengths: creative storytelling and editing. As Diane noted, "I used to spend half of my time managing translators, which I didn’t know how to do… now that’s all outsourced, and it’s a game changer."
"I used to spend half of my time managing translators, which I didn’t know how to do… now that’s all outsourced, and it’s a game changer."
On top of that, Happy Scribe proved to be a cost-efficient solution. Transparent pricing eliminated the hassle of managing freelance translators while delivering better results. “Even if our old process was cheaper, the quality was much lower, and we were wasting so much time. Happy Scribe is worth every cent,” Diane remarked.
“Even if our old process was cheaper, the quality was much lower, and we were wasting so much time. Happy Scribe is worth every cent.”
Results in a nutshell:
- 75% time saved processing a day’s footage in a week instead of weeks.
- Over 1,000 hours of multilingual footage handled with ease.
- High accuracy for multilingual content using AI and human reviews.
- Full project management outsourcing freed up valuable time for creative work.
- Consistent, on-time, and high quality delivery of transcripts, translations, and subtitles, meeting even tight deadlines.
Cristina G
Cristina G is a former journalist who transitioned into PR and Communications before diving into growth marketing and ultimately product marketing. She loves learning and writing about how HappyScribe customers use the product to achieve their goals.