How shoot and edit for a music video

[Harm Millaard]

Assuming you are going to make a multi-camera shoot of a playback performance, I would suggest to use a simple photocamera flash to synchronize the different cameras, again assuming you do not have genlock capabilities. What also helps is that the date and time of the various cameras are properly matched prior to the recording. If you then use Scenalyzer to capture, it will automatically add the date and time of the recording to the filenames. This makes it a lot easier to identify shots and lipsynch those.

Even if tedious, you could also synchronize on the waveform, but it is not as accurate as a simple flash. Take all shots with a clear recording of the original sound that is being playbacked. The sound of the musicians is not very relevant and will be removevd anyway.

Harm Millaard

[Phocas Kroon]

You can also use only one or two camera’s and let the artists playback several times.
Synchronise with beeps putted on the CD.
If you have no multicam software put all the recordings above each other in the timeline and cut the not used parts away.

Good luck

Phocas

[Aanarav Sareen]

What version of Premiere Pro are you using? Premiere Pro 2.0 has introduced multi-cam editing, which will help you out.

Aanarav Sareen
premiere@asvideoproductions.com

[Julio Crespo]

Thanks for the tip, but I’m a rockie in this field, Can you explain more especific with the technics of the flash camera….. I only have one camera and plan to shoot in diferents outdoor scenarios.
What genlock capabilities and Scenalyzer is?

Image is Everyting

[Julio Crespo]

I’m uising PP 1.5. I found some plugins to multicam cpabilities for 1.5 but, I’m not have the Budget :-(. Any tip, trick that you have to give me for doing that proyect

Image is Everyting

[Phocas Kroon]

If you want to shoot with one camera you can follow my method as described.
Making a flash is only usefull when you shoot with different camera’s at the same time.
Forget also genlock.
It is only imported to shoot each time the total song. After you have synchronised the different live sound tracks on the timeline with the beep on the CD there are no further sychronisation problems.
Put the original sound of the CD on a separate sound track, synchronise this with the live recorded tracks and switch all live soundtracks off.
Now you can start editing the videotracks.

Phocas Kroon

[Terry Love]

I too, use one camera and shoot several times to get enough angles and shots.
Most of the time, when I’m editing, I use the 2 second time frame setting, and expand the audio track to see the sound waves.

I put my favorite track on top, and cut out the parts I know I don’t want.
Hopefully below that track, I have some other good stuff I can use.
Of course, you can always fake some stuff, and make it look like it fits.
I do that with the drummer quite a bit.
Find some shots with the cymbal being hit, that’s an easy one to time up.