🎥
Documentary & brand films
Story-driven films assembled in minutes, so you spend your time shaping the narrative, not logging tape.
New · AI Rough-Cut Builder
RoughCut
Turn hours of interview footage into a real, editable rough cut. RoughCut transcribes every source on your own machine, an AI picks and orders the strongest quotes into a story, and it builds a live multi-source sequence, in Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve, that you can keep editing.
Pr Resolve
Start Free Trial ✦ 7-day free trial
One subscription unlocks everything. RoughCut comes with Filmit Studio, along with our whole suite of plugins, effects, transitions, overlays, and courses, plus everything new we ship. It's all included!
Included with Filmit Studio
7 days free, then $20/mo, or save 20% billed yearly. Cancel anytime.
RoughCut v1.0
Sources Story Build
Watch the Demo
See RoughCut in Action
A full walkthrough, from raw interviews to a finished multi-source cut.
Get Started
How to get RoughCut
Three steps and you are up and running, with RoughCut and every other Filmit tool, right inside your editor today.
1
Create your account
Sign up free at filmit.io. No card needed to look around.
2
Install Filmit Studio
Download the free desktop app for Mac or Windows. It manages every tool for you.
3
Start your free trial
Start your 7-day trial and install RoughCut plus every other tool, straight into your editor.
The Problem
The story is buried in six hours of interviews.
Interview and documentary editing is 90% assembly work before you ever get to be creative. RoughCut does the assembly.
📝
The paper edit eats your week
Scrubbing hours of footage at 2x, logging soundbites into a document, building a transcript by hand. Days of work before a single clip hits the timeline.
✓ RoughCut transcribes every source locally in minutes
🧩
Soundbites scattered across cameras
The best line is on Cam B, the reaction on Cam A, the answer in a second interview. Finding and matching them across sources is a memory game.
✓ Every quote is tagged by source and rebuilt on its own track
🏗️
Assembling by hand, clip by clip
Dragging selects onto a timeline, syncing angles, closing gaps, one cut at a time. Hours of mechanical work that isn't the edit, it's the setup for the edit.
✓ RoughCut builds a frame-accurate, gap-free sequence for you
Features
From raw interviews to an editable cut.
RoughCut isn't a transcript tool bolted onto your editor. It's a full rough-cut pipeline that lives inside Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve and hands you a real, editable sequence.
Local transcription, private by default
RoughCut transcribes with Whisper directly on your machine. Nothing is uploaded, there are no per-minute fees, and no account is needed just to transcribe. Your footage never leaves your computer.
AI story builder
Give it a brief, a genre, a tone, and a target length. The AI reads every quote, scores them, and orders the strongest into an arc, from hook to close. Run more than one AI and compare their cuts side by side.
Real multi-source sequences
RoughCut rebuilds multicam and multi-interview timelines: every angle on its own track, all audio channels carried, frame-exact placement, and no one-frame gaps between cuts.
Every deliverable in one pass
One analysis produces a hero cut, tighter cut-downs, and a whole batch of vertical shorts. Each one builds as its own sequence, organized into tidy bins.
All-quotes library
Every soundbite, tagged and searchable across all your sources. Build cuts by hand, drop a single quote onto your timeline at the playhead, or bank all your selects into one sequence.
Editable, never flattened
RoughCut builds real subclips you can trim and extend, dragging the tails out to the rest of the source. It's a rough cut you keep editing, not a locked render.
Export a client-ready script Excel + CSV
One click writes an Excel workbook, a sheet per cut, sectioned with running timecode, plus your full quote library. Hand it to a client or producer to approve before you render.
Bring your own AI, or none
Use the free export-and-paste flow with ChatGPT or Claude and pay nothing, or add your own API key for one-click analysis. Either way, nothing routes through us.
Premiere Pro & DaVinci Resolve
RoughCut runs natively in both Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, on Mac and Windows, matched to each app's look. Same workflow, your NLE of choice.
No second subscription
Bring your own AI. Or none at all.
RoughCut never forces you to pay another company for AI. Pick the path that fits your workflow, your privacy needs, and your budget.
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Free · no API key
Export, paste, import
RoughCut writes a ready-to-paste prompt from your brief and timecoded transcript. Drop it into free ChatGPT or Claude, paste the answer back into the panel, and RoughCut builds the cut. No key, no setup, no cost, and it works forever.
⚡
One-click · your own key
Analyze in a single click
Add your Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI (ChatGPT) key once, it syncs automatically from Filmit Studio, and RoughCut runs the whole round-trip for you: read, design, build. You pay the AI provider directly, pennies per cut, and nothing is ever routed through our servers.
Either way, your transcription is always local and private. The AI only ever sees the transcript text you choose to send, never your video or audio.
How it works
Transcribe. Design. Build.
Three stages take you from a pile of raw interviews to a sequence you can open and keep editing.
Stage 1 · Transcribe
Transcribe locally, in minutes.
Point RoughCut at the interview sequences already in your project. It exports the audio, runs Whisper on your own machine, and returns clean, timecoded transcripts, the raw material for everything that follows.
- Runs on your machine, nothing is uploaded
- Handles multiple sources and long-form footage
- Every line becomes a searchable, taggable quote
- One-time engine download, then it just works
Local Transcription
0:04
0:11
0:19
Stage 2 · Design
An editable story board, not a black box.
Tell RoughCut the genre, tone, and target length. The AI reads every quote, scores them, and lays out an arc, hook, theme, b-roll VO, close, on a board you control. Reorder, bench, rename sections, or add lines. It's your cut.
- Section-based arc with a live runtime meter
- Reorder, drop, or bench any quote or whole section
- Compare multiple AI takes as separate tabs
- Hits your target length, not a 26-minute ramble
Story Board 5:20 / 8:00
Hook
Theme
Close
Stage 3 · Build
A real sequence you can keep cutting.
Approve the board and RoughCut constructs a live sequence, in Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve: each source on its own tracks, all audio carried, every clip frame-accurate and butt-joined. Then keep editing, trim, extend the tails, reorder, relink, like any timeline you built yourself.
- Multi-track, multi-source, color-coded by source
- Frame-exact, with no one-frame gaps between cuts
- Real subclips you can extend to the full source
- Every cut and short filed into tidy bins
Editable Sequence Built · 13 cuts
V2
V1
A1
Client-ready script
Hand your client the story before you render.
Turn any project into a spreadsheet a client or producer can read and approve, no NLE required.
The whole cut, as a script.
Export any RoughCut project to an Excel workbook and every deliverable becomes its own tab: the hero cut, each shorts batch, and your full quote library, all grouped by section with running timecode and length.
It reads like a paper edit, so a client can sign off on the story in a spreadsheet before you touch the timeline. Prefer something simpler? Export the current tab as a plain CSV instead.
Built for real handoffs, no extra software, no plugins, just a clean workbook you can email.
Use cases
Built for anything with a voice.
Interviews are just the start. If your footage has spoken audio, RoughCut finds the story and gets you to the edit faster.
🎙️
Podcasts & interviews
Multicam conversations rebuilt on their own tracks, ready for you to cut to whoever's talking.
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Gaming & streaming
Hours of gameplay and commentary cut down to the highlights, pulled straight from what you called out on the mic.
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Weddings & events
Vows, toasts, and speeches shaped into a clean story, with the moments that matter already on the timeline.
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Corporate & testimonial
Turn a 60-minute sit-down into a tight two-minute sizzle plus a batch of shorts, in one pass.
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Social shorts & highlights
Batch vertical cut-downs from any footage, each one its own sequence, sized for the feed.
Setup
From raw footage to a cut in four steps.
No paper edit, no manual logging, no API required to start.
1
Add your sources
Pick the interview sequences from your Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve project. Multicam and multiple interviews welcome.
2
Transcribe
One click. Whisper runs locally and every line becomes a searchable, taggable quote.
3
Design the story
Analyze with AI, your own key or the free paste path, then tweak the board until it feels right.
4
Build the cut
Create real, editable sequences in Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve: your hero cut, cut-downs, and a batch of shorts, then keep editing.
FAQ
Common questions
Everything you need to know about RoughCut.
No. RoughCut's free path exports a ready-made prompt you paste into free ChatGPT or Claude, then paste the answer back to build your cut. No key, no cost. Add your own Anthropic or OpenAI key only if you'd rather have one-click analysis, and even then you pay the AI provider directly at cost.
No. Transcription runs locally with Whisper, right on your machine, so nothing is uploaded. The only thing ever sent to an AI is the transcript text you choose to analyze, and only if you use the AI story builder at all. Your video and audio never leave your computer.
Both Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, as a native panel on Mac and Windows. It reads the interview sequences straight from your project and builds the finished cuts right back into it, whichever editor you're in.
Yes, that's the whole point. RoughCut builds a real sequence of editable subclips. You can trim them, extend the tails out to the full source footage, reorder, relink, or razor, exactly like a timeline you assembled yourself. Nothing is flattened or rendered.
Yes. Each source is color-tagged and rebuilt on its own video and audio tracks, with every channel carried and every clip placed frame-accurately. Whether it's a two-camera podcast or several separate interviews, RoughCut reassembles the real multi-angle timeline.
A client-ready script. One click writes an Excel workbook where every cut, and your full quote library, becomes its own tab, grouped by section with running timecode and length. It reads like a paper edit so a client can approve the story in a spreadsheet. You can also export the current tab as a plain CSV.
Yes. RoughCut is included with your Filmit Studio subscription at $20/month, along with every other Filmit tool, overlay, and course. Try it with a 7-day free trial.