Creating Highlight Reels from Transcripts and AI Chat

Build highlight reels from participant transcripts or save AI Chat insights directly to your Saved tab with an auto-generated reel.

Highlight reels let you package the most compelling participant moments into a single, shareable video — giving stakeholders direct evidence without having to watch every session. Strella gives you two ways to create them: by selecting text directly from a participant transcript, or by saving an insight that AI Chat has already surfaced for you.

Method 1 — Build a reel from a transcript

Use this method when you’re reading through a session and spot a moment worth capturing.

1. Open a participant session

   Navigate to the project and open the session you want to work with. You can do this from the Responses tab or directly from the Analysis tab.

2. Find the relevant part of the transcript

   Scroll through the transcript until you reach the section where the insight was discussed. The transcript is synchronized with the recording, so you can also use the video player to locate the moment and watch the text follow along.

3. Select the transcript text

   Click and drag your cursor across the portion of the transcript you want to include in the reel. Aim for the full context of the participant’s point — you can always trim or extend later.

4. Click 'Add note' in the pop-up

   After you release the mouse, a small pop-up appears over the selection. Click Add note to attach a note to that transcript segment. The note will appear in the panel on the right side of the page.

5. Add the note to an insight

   Click the 3 dots (⋯) menu on the note you just created. Select Add to insight, then either:

   • Choose an existing insight from the list, or
   • Type a new insight title and select it to create a brand-new insight.
6. Repeat across sessions

   Navigate to the next participant session where this insight was discussed and repeat steps 2–5. Add each relevant clip to the same insight to build a multi-session reel.

Once you’ve added clips from at least one session, the insight appears in the Saved tab with a highlight reel automatically assembled from all the notes you’ve linked to it.

You can add clips from as many sessions as you like. Strella stitches them together in the order the notes appear on the right panel — see Editing Highlight Reels to change that order.

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Method 2 — Save an insight from AI Chat

Use this method when AI Chat has already done the work of finding a pattern and you want to preserve it with a highlight reel.

1. Open AI Chat and ask your question

   Click AI Chat in the top navigation bar of your project. Type any question about your research and send it.

2. Review the response

   AI Chat returns an insight accompanied by participant quotes. Look for the circular participant-initials icons — click one to preview the exact quote, and click the quote again to jump to that session.

3. Click 'Save insight'

   At the bottom of the AI Chat message, click Save insight. Strella saves the insight to the Saved tab and automatically generates a highlight reel from the associated participant quotes.

The Save insight button only appears on messages that include participant quotes. If a response is general commentary without quote evidence, there’s nothing to build a reel from — ask a more specific question to surface quote-backed insights.