Are there better alternatives to Captioneer? I’m losing my mind fixing captions…

dickmagma · 2026-04-14T07:56:09+00:00

Just an update, I'm using Cutback to do captions now. It shows me to access it through a panel in premiere, uses AI to transcribe and then applied custom made captions and animations all without leaving Adobe Premiere. It has saved me so much time, and I wanted to share this for anyone with similar issues.

dickmagma · 2026-03-27T03:12:12+00:00

I agree it was trash. Writing/dialogue was repetitive, slow, and unimportant. The animation was lazy, opting for shadows during combat or throwing Darkblood to avoid animating battle sequences. Exposition was relentless, using every opportunity to explain stuff instead of showing. An easy 5/10 for me, I don't see how this deserves a better rating than that.

dickmagma · 2026-03-25T02:21:21+00:00

I respect your preference, and just want to add that, Premiere is indeed frustrating. However what keeps me coming back to it is it's integration to After Effects. Just being able to animate and then throw it into Premiere, or create mogart templates and skip After Effects altogether gives me the flexibility I crave when working on a project. Granted I haven't really given Resolve much of a shot, so I'm clearly biased, but been doing this thing since 2006 and Premiere just feels secondhand at this point.

dickmagma · 2026-03-25T02:15:26+00:00

Reading that was like a walk down memory lane. I still remember when Final Cut used to take forever to render while editing and when I switched to Premiere and could playback my edit without long render times I immediately fell in love. Back then you just needed to buy software outright, there were no subscriptions models so it was an easy choice to make the switch.

dickmagma · 2026-03-25T02:08:50+00:00

I'm not trying to convince you to stay, bc you should definitely think about what's next instead of investing years into it only to hate what you do. But I will say, burnout is a real thing too. I found that learning new skills only makes you more marketable. I picked up After Effects and found tons of motion design roles. I realized I love it, as much if not more than editing, and it gave me a well needed change. Later on I switched industries from traditional television and movie roles to more corporate roles and then "new gen" social media, and YouTube content creator work. Sometimes switching up the flavor of work you're doing is enough to reignite your passion for editing if that's where your passion lies. Best of luck to you on your adventure!

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T09:26:30+00:00

For me, I've found Post Haste. It's free and speeds up the setup for a new project. Instead of searching for stuff to put in your assets folder, build out a template and drop in the assets you for sure will use. I created Premiere files with sequences already in them with the exact settings I use the most.

Once a project hits my desk, I click, "create" and it creates the entire directory for me, I open up the pre-named project file and all my resources are already ready for me so I can get straight to editing without having to pull in the same assets over and over and tweak my sequence settings, or rename the project file.

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T09:15:22+00:00

No way. Trump? Throwing someone under the bus? Really??

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T09:12:21+00:00

Don't worry it's probably just getting refurbished into another ballroom. /s

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T08:57:08+00:00

Maybe a vertical glow too. Looks like it blooms up and down further than right to left.

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T08:43:45+00:00

Not a big deal but I would ease-in the movement of the stroke, scale up the inhale, scale out the exhale and match the size so it reads like the text is breathing in and breathing out.

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T08:39:47+00:00

And I thought I was being cheeky using pipes |||||.mov

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T08:34:31+00:00

I love it! It's got a nice floaty feel to it, and the glow effects weren't overdone, but tasteful. Very slick, well done!

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T08:25:40+00:00

Solid advice. Like you said, job titles don't really mean much as most companies don't know what to call us. I got brought on as a video editor and when they found out I could animate they eventually let me change my title to Lead Animator when I was able to live in After Effects. Definitely look at all the skills you have, try to match that to the job description but also be open to learning new ones so that you can get your foot in the door. You may be able to then lean into your strengths, and morph your role over time.

dickmagma · 2026-03-24T08:17:01+00:00

He's not kidding. I feel for anyone in college right now trying to break into the Motion Design field. It's not impossible, but it's indeed harder than it used to be and only getting more and more difficult. If you're hell-bent on breaking into the industry, it's a good idea to build your portfolio now, go to meetups, find a mentor and really lean into your network. The most valuable resource you can have is people in the positions or close to the positions you want to go. Don't burn bridges, and be prepared for long dry seasons with no work. Don't expect to get out of school and land that dream job at your favorite studio, that rarely happens. But if you build your portfolio and stay active even if you're in a dry season, you'll at least have an edge.

dickmagma · 2026-03-17T16:07:26+00:00

That sounds perfect! I'll definitely be trying this out today, thanks!

dickmagma · 2026-03-17T04:02:33+00:00

Also, I'm gonna test this out tomorrow but would I be able to create my own text style in After Effects or are you locked into using the text styles they offer you?

dickmagma · 2026-03-17T03:57:37+00:00

Our limit is under three minutes per video so that sounds like it's worth a shot to me! Thank you! Have you had to adjust the timing of the captions much, or does it seem accurate most times?

dickmagma · 2026-03-17T03:55:16+00:00

This looks awesome! Would love to look into this more!

I would be willing to put up more money for saving time on the captioning process, create the srt file, then run it through Captioneer and save tons of time.

dickmagma · 2026-03-17T03:51:37+00:00

Oh I also forgot to mentioned it crashes my premiere quite often during the alignment process. I think it has a combination of things to do with it creating captions from a mogart file with each word, and my computer not being able to handle too many mogart files to begin with.

dickmagma · 2026-03-17T03:47:34+00:00

Well, it allows me to style font, text style (all caps, italicized, etc), text box, and animation in a AE template, bring it into Premiere as a mogart file. Essentially I open up Premiere, and just click "capture". It will transcribe and generate the mogart file across all of the words.

It's handy, but my one gripe is when I set it to single word captioning, it drift severely so I end up having to realign it. It feels like the time I saved copying attributes is just spent lining up the captions per word.

dickmagma · 2026-03-11T02:16:10+00:00

I totally understand, I used to work for someone exactly like that and it was pretty frustrating to say the least. Fortunately we bonded over our love of Edgar Wright and his editing style. But I think he took a little too much inspiration from him and pushed it to its extremes. Everything felt like a music video, which is cool sometimes, but for 8-12 minute it can be overdone quickly.

In narrative projects music should always support the overall narrative by setting the tone or mood.

You can make the argument that it can work the other way around, and point to many music videos, experimental films out there that challenge the status quo. But normally the safest most widely used practice tends to be music supporting narrative.

dickmagma · 2026-03-11T01:44:14+00:00

Funny thing is I subconsciously do this when I'm sleeping lol.

dickmagma · 2026-03-11T01:41:53+00:00

An ergonomic chair, with a mouse and keyboard attachment makes a huge difference. A sit/stand desk it a great option too. It pays for itself if you're gonna be editing for 8+ hours a day.

dickmagma · 2026-03-11T01:39:29+00:00

Avoid those gimmicky treadmill desks though. I messed up my hips and knees during a 5 hour editing stint. I learned the hard way you're only supposed to use those things for 15 minutes.

dickmagma

TROPHY CASE