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FCP X workflow for 2 camera (EX1 and DSLR) interview edit?
As luck would have it, I have a client in higher education who decided the day after FCP X came out to buy it to edit a series of interview videos in-house. They don’t have FCP 7, so this would be their first NLE purchase, and they’re not–yet–video editors. (We discussed the pros and cons of this approach, and it seems to be their best option considering their needs, budget, etc.)
Anyway, they want to hire me to train them in FCP X and set up a workflow, from ingest through delivery to the web, and the timing is rather tight.
So, as I scramble to install FCP X and figure it out, can I ask the COW for advice? I’m going through tutorials and so on as well, but all information is appreciated right now!
THE FOOTAGE
We have 25 hour-long interviews, shot with two cameras. Often both cameras are EX1s, but often one camera is an EX1 and the other is a DSLR, usually the 7D, but on two of the interviews, it’s the Panasonic GH2 (AVCHD).
So we have, variously, XDCAM EX 1080i60, H.264, and AVCHD, in a two-camera setup. The boom/lav audio goes into the A camera, and the B camera has only an internal mic, for reference and syncing.
Normally I’d probably convert everything to ProRes and then use Pluraleyes to make multiclips and edit in multicam mode.
What now? I know I have to use XDCAM Transfer to ‘wrap’ the XDCAM EX footage in Quicktime, and then I can bring it in with the 7D and GH2 footage without transcoding those, right?
What about synching? How do I make new clips in FCP X which combine the DSLR footage with the audio recorded to the EX1? In other words, merged clips in FCP 7 jargon. Or is that the wrong approach?
I know the answers are online, but they’re calling for help now, and so I’m feeling off my game not being able to tell them anything specific…
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8 Replies
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This is exactly why multiclip is such a needed feature in FCPX. I’m sorry I don’t have any advice…I’m stuck using FCP7 for this kind of project for now. The only think I would say is that I have heard that FCPX has a feature that can match clips using audio to synch them up. (I haven’t gotten far enough into it to see how to do this yet) How you would edit back and forth between them I have no idea. Maybe with filmstrip view on?
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David,
Thanks–I know there’s no multicam editing, so it would be a manual process of cutting in part of the close-up, then part of the wide shot. And they’re OK with that. The real issue is replacing the DSLR audio with the good lav and boom tracks.
I guess if I can use the auto-synching clips feature, and then use, um, Clip Connections? to make this work? Hmmm…I’ll experiment as soon as I have some time in a couple of hours and report back.
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Yeah – line up the content, make a clip connection, and just do blade cuts where you feel that a shot needs to change. Maybe put the wide shot in the timeline as the main sequence and go from there. You can hit the blade tool to throw in a cut while playing back without stopping, so that will help you some.
I imported some footage from an H4N and 7D and it layed them all out next to each other in the event browser, which was pretty nice actually. Have some other things going on but plan on getting back to that and digging deeper when I get a chance. I need to figure how to get it to sync up waveforms for me in the timeline.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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Here’s what I think you’re going to be able to do:
(assuming all the EX1 footage is already re-wrapped and ready to go as Quicktimes. If that’s not the case, you’re going to have to re-wrap it all in FCP7 or XDCAM Transfer, and then import into FCPX)
1-Take an EX1 interview clip, the corresponding DSLR clip, and the audio clip, select them all in the Event, right click, and “Make Synchronized Clip”
2-This will make what is almost like a Multiclip in FCP7. It will be a new clip in the Event. You can then double click it in the Event and it will open like a nested sequence. I don’t have the proper media to test, but I expect if the DSLR(s) has an onboard audio track to work with, X will sync everything up and you can cut the multicam using Position mode inside the Synchronized Clip ‘sequence”, and then do the larger Interview editing in the main “Project”
Nate Weaver
Director/D.P., Los Angeles
https://www.nateweaver.net -
I just found an old job with the right media to test Synchronized Clips. It works as advertised!
3 DSLRs with onboard audio, and one proper audio WAV made with Sound Devices. I picked the 4 clips from the same take, and said Make Synchronized Clip. It clicked and whirred for about 30 seconds, and then I double clicked and opened the Synchronized clip:
Nate Weaver
Director/D.P., Los Angeles
https://www.nateweaver.net -
Awesome! I keep forgetting to look that up. Now we know!
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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So the how do you edit this? Do you use the blade tool and replace chunks with “gap clips”? Otherwise I would think that removing a section would move the entire timeline down on one level to fill the gap. It seems like this might be a work-around for some projects until we get a proper multi-clip function. (Unfortunately this still does me no good on projects that are 2+ hours long with three cameras 🙁 )
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I was working in Position mode, razor blading, and moving endpoints around.
Do that enough though, and “track 3” bumps down to “track 2” and starts to make things confusing.
I think if I do it again I will be in Position mode, razor blade, and use the V shortcut to toggle visibility.
I learned on the old FCPs that doing stuff like that tended to make your project size balloon, but I’m betting some of those old habits aren’t needed anymore.
Not a good alternative to real Multiclips by a long shot, but I *can* get work done this way.
Nate Weaver
Director/D.P., Los Angeles
https://www.nateweaver.net
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