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4 cameras, 2 non-sync tracks to cover theatre performance
I’ve shot a live theatre production with two cameras (one locked-off wide, the other operated for close-ups) over two performances — it was a traverse stage with the audience on each side of the auditorium and the stage down the middle, so the “four” cameras were needed to cover all the action. I had a separate mic and, thus far, have made four sync clips — two synced to first performance audio track and two synced to the second. The performances on both nights are close, but not close enough to multicam.
Right now I’m attempting to edit by dropping scenes from the browser onto the timeline, but it’s proving to be a monster (it doesn’t help that the play is 3 1/2 hours long).
My question is, is there a way to simplify this? The ideal would be something like multicam — even if I had to correct sync after assembly (providing I could keep the correct track with each scene).
All help grovelingly received.
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4 Replies
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How I would attack this is to multicam it in two stages: do your best multicam of the first night, save that, do your best of the second night… then either render them out and start a new project wit them as your only two sources… or make those compound clips, and now you just have to work with syncing up two compounds using the , and. keys. Blade thru the places where you want the other compound to show thru. Create an empty, silent track below and pin all the compounds to that first, to keep things from drifting.
This requires a little bit of directorial work in your head, but by this time you probably are pretty familiar with all the footage and know which night has the best shots for each part of the show.
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Thank you, Mark. I’ll give it a shot.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Press] “live theatre production with two cameras…I had a separate mic and, thus far, have made four sync clips — two synced to first performance audio track and two synced to the second. The performances on both nights are close, but not close enough to multicam.
Right now I’m attempting to edit by dropping scenes from the browser onto the timeline, but it’s proving to be a monster (it doesn’t help that the play is 3 1/2 hours long).”
I just spent five weeks editing a similar multcam stage act with multiple performances. It is difficult, esp. if you need to mix performances.
I suggest using multicam not sync clips. Make separate multicams for each performance. Do not drop parent clips into the timeline; those don’t have quality audio (unless each camera received the house feed).
If you need a “best of” or overview reel that’s one thing. The dilemma is if you need complete coverage. In that case you can’t just put in favorites.
Normally the preferred approach is mark/keyword the multicam clip in the browser. With FCPX you do maximum possible work in the browser. However if you need complete continuous coverage, that is different.
Yet you can’t fully sync both performances together — they are too different. I’d be tempted to lay the two multicams on top of each other in the timeline, maybe insert periodic gap clips to roughly maintain sync, then visually go through them with the angle editor enabled.
Mainly (or solely) use audio from one performance. You’ll have to make a case-by-case judgment on when you can cut to video of performance #2 and keep “good enough” sync. It might be possible to switch audio in some cases if you expand audio, overlap and feather them together. It depends on how similar/different the audio sounds.
The goal is leverage each performance as a multicam to the degree possible, and somehow blend them in the timeline. It’s not easy but it’s easier than just patching in camera clips.
If there was anyone else shooting (ie crowd reaction shots, etc) and you can get that material it would help – even if cell phone. That would allow cutaways to cover difficult cases.
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Coincidentally, Mark Spencer of Ripple training just posted a really informative and detailed set of tips for complex multicam editing in FCPX: https://youtu.be/IMS0iDOg3Q4
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