-
General Multicam Question
We just shot a 30 minute show where I hired 2 very experienced cameramen each with their own camera. I had my own stationary camera in the back. Their cameras are a Panasonic with P2 cards, and a Sony with XDCAM media.
When I told them that I wanted them to each turn their camera on and continuously record the entire show without pausing the camera to reposition, they acted like I was crazy. They told me that they could sync the timecode on each camera and that I could use that to sync the editing.
What I have always done in the past, is to lay the stationary camera clip as V1, and the 2nd and 3rd camera as V2 and V3. From there, I would simply do “lifts” during any cutaways on tracks V2 & V3 for the 2nd and 3rd camera, and the track underneath (ie the stationary camera) would appear in the sequence.
They agreed to do it my way, but I would like to know if I am missing something.
I have not yet tried multicam editing, but if each cameraman took 50 individual shots, each shot would be a separate master clip after the import process. If I had 100 clips, 50 from each camera, and I grouped the clips in multi-cam mode, wouldn’t Avid think that I have 100 cameras?
I hope I am explaining this correctly. I would like to try multicam editing, but is this feasable if I have so many master clips from each camera?
Thanks,
Jim -
7 Replies
-
For your example, you would have one 3 camera group clip for each span of overlapping common timecode. A multigroup clip is a clip of group clips in ascending order.
Michael
Michael Phillips
-
I have not tried the multigroup. The documentation said that it was strictly for large multicamera productions, so I did not think that it was right for this.
It seems like a lot work to do it this way. Don’t you need to manually look for all overlapping timecode shots and group them?
The way I asked them to do it still seems easier, being that final product needs to be the entire 30 minute show. My way does take up more disk space, but it is more like editing a live broadcast.Thanks for the reply. Maybe I am missing something.
Jim
-
James,
Obviously the best way to do this is to send timecode to all cameras and then sync isn’t an issue. Since that wasn’t done, I’ll explain below what you do.
In answer to your first question about having multiple clips, YES, that would be a huge pain. You would have to go through the process described below for every set of clips – every time someone stopped tape (unless the cameras were set to free-run timecode, then once you find the correlation between all cameras your good). But still a huge pain.
You need to find the timecode sync point for each tape. Unless there is a flash or clap at the beginning for you to visually mark in-points, you will need to find sync another way. The method I have used is to edit each camera to a temporary sequence with audio. V1&A1,A2=Cam 1, V2&A3,A4=Cam2, etc.
Then turning on waveforms and listening to the audio I trim each track to find the sync. Then I match frame each camera.
With the three clips selected, group them and edit into a timeline. Then you can use your F keys (with versions up to 4.x) to cut between the cameras. I have done this with only two cameras and up to four (at least that’s what I did).
Hope this helps.
Ed
Avid and FCP Preditor
_________________________________________________
Anything worth doing at all, is worth doing well.
– Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield -
Ed,
Thanks for the reply. The 2 cameramen did actually sync their timecodes and they did do free-run time code. When you say “send timecode to cameras”, how is that accomplished? They were working with cameras with P2 and XDCAM cards.
Being that this was a 30 min show without any breaks and the final product being the entire show, vs. a 6 hour event that needs to be cut down to an hour, was my way of telling them not to turn the camera off between shots the better way of doing it? I am just curious why 2 videographers that did not know each other would tell me that I am doing it all wrong. I normally do my sync with a flash frame, or clap like you say. It is easy, and only needs to be done once. If AVID has a way to automatically make a 30 min clip from 15 minutes of video based on timecode and have blank space in between when the cameras are off, then this might make more sense. I don’t think this can be done. I am on MC 3.0. I want to work with these guys again, but I would like to have a convincing arguement if my way is better.Thanks,
Jim -
You were right in telling them not to stop recording.
I’ve done multicamera iso stuff many times and that method just works. Line up the flash or clap or whatever and everything is in sync.
They may not have encountered this before.
-
Thanks everybody! I feel redeemed….
Happy Holidays to all.
Jim LaRuffa
-
I use multicam editing very often and find it very good, although it was a learning curve to sort out the little ways of avid.
Re your cameramen
Tell them the simplest way that theyll understand.
If they want paying, do as theyre told.
I find that often people in the field rarely have a very good understanding of post issues and techniques. Not always but often.
Peter
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up