One of the most time-consuming parts of editing a documentary or profile piece is digging through hours of interviews to find key moments. I recently worked with a client on a 10-minute awards banquet profile piece, and we experimented with NotebookLM—Google’s AI-powered research tool—to take some of that heavy lifting off our plate.
We uploaded Premiere Pro-generated transcripts from three interviews and started asking questions. Instead of manually scrubbing through footage, we asked, “Where does the subject talk about landing a plane on the highway?” NotebookLM not only found the answer instantly but also read the timecodes, giving us a near-perfect timestamp from a 30-minute interview.
Huge time-saver!
Then we asked for a Briefing Report, and it pulled together a concise, well-structured narrative using direct quotes. My client’s reaction?
👉 “It’s better than what has taken me a month to write 😊.”
What really impressed me was that NotebookLM lets you toggle linked sources on and off, so you can control exactly where each response will come from. If you need to verify a quote or dive deeper into a specific interview, it’s all right there—no second-guessing or re-watching footage to confirm details.
The real win here wasn’t that AI wrote the script for us—but that it eliminated the most tedious parts so we could focus on the creative decisions that actually matter. We still had to shape the story, refine the wording, and make it all work visually—but NotebookLM made the process faster and more efficient.
This was an eye-opener. AI isn’t replacing our storytelling skills; it’s helping us work smarter. If you’re a content creator, how are you using AI in your workflow?
🔗 Try it for yourself: https://lnkd.in/esNznHD9
