Live video switching between 3 channels during playback (for a music video)

[Brandon Parigo]

The easiest way “live switch” your four angles would be to sync all your clips via multicam. Load it onto your timeline and then switch the angles during playback.

How you have it, the best way to keep it all organized is to highlight all the footage of a certain type (medium for example), and make that footage into it’s own storyline (command G). It won’t fall down out of it’s own storyline. Just make sure instead of cutting and deleting clips in a storyline you make your edit points then replace with gap.

[Andy Neil]

You should watch my tutorial on Multicam workflow. It’s a two parter, but you can probably solve your problem with part one.

FCPX INs and OUTs: Multicam Pt. 1

You can use the auto sync feature to sync each of your takes as an angle and give your music an angle as well. Then you can play back the video and live cut between shots.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Bill Davis]

That’s not going to work well because these aren’t really “multicam” clips. They are three different performances – each, I suspect, with their own variations in tempo and performance.

If the band played to a click track or some other synchronization timekeeper, it might work, but you’re essentially needing to create one performance out of parts of three different ones -and that is going to be more complex than traditional “I have 3 cameras shooting at the same time” true multicam approach.

Without having the time to think it through more carefully, you might play around with cutting all three of your stacked clips into smaller “best of” chunks, possibly around solos, sections or just where a great look or performance takes place. Then Disable the upper connected clips as a group (V-key) and work on doing the same for the middle level clips. When you’ve made your selects this way – you can use Disable/Enable to show or hide each clip layer in your connected clip stacks and trim from there.

That’s one “off the cuff” strategy that springs to mind, but hopefully someone can come up with something better.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Andy Neil]

Bill, if you looked at what the OP wrote:

[Thoreau Bakker] ” I have loaded the .wav as the main story line, and manually synched and stacked all 3 takes on top of the audio.

I’m using the marker and blade tools to make slices in the top two video channels (audio muted), and pulling out bits to reveal the shots underneath.
“

You can see that he’s already stacked these different takes on top of each other as if they were three cameras in the same performance. He’s essentially making a ghetto multiclip. I’m just suggesting that he make an ACTUAL multiclip and save himself some trouble.

It doesn’t matter if the clips are of different takes or not As long as you can sync them to one track of music, then you’re fine.

Heck, you can even cut up a take and spread it out over a single angle to account for differences in performance.

Multiclip editing is still the easiest way to do this.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Bill Davis]

[Andy Neil] “Heck, you can even cut up a take and spread it out over a single angle to account for differences in performance.

Multiclip editing is still the easiest way to do this.”

Maybe I’m just overly sensitive about this since I’m working on a 12 camera Jazz performance video right now, but time and tempo are, in my view, the very essence of any music performance.

If you simply stack up three different performances – even of the same tune – I’d think that at every single cut, you’d run into the potential to have either the music track or the visual presentation out of sync.

You could cut from both the audio and video of take 1 to the same place in “take 2” but if the performance tempo is off between those takes – and I suspect it will be through human variation – you’re going to risk at least a fractional jump cut and the need to trim at every single edit – unless the performance is keyed to a click track or some other time synchronization.

Maybe this isn’t important in the type of performance the OP is posting. And I can accept that.

But in my world right now cutting jazz performance, the GOPro shots of the jazz drummers pedal work have to be absolutely and precisely “in time” with the music being both seen and heard or I’m not doing my job properly. And I can’t fathom how you can do that if you’ve recorded three totally separate performances and want the visual of Take 1 measure 20 to align with the sounds recorded during Take 3 measure 20.

But maybe I simply don’t understand this well enough.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bret Williams]

My reading is that he shot a music video in which the band played along with or lip-synched to the studio performance. If that’s not the case it doesn’t matter, as he has already gotten the tracks in sync manually. He’s now asking how to slice the tracks automagically. He’s already making tedious slices and hasn’t mentioned any problem with the band’s performance being out of sync or needing adjustment.

There is one simple answer. Throw the stuff in a multi clip. That’s what it’s for.

Your project should be a multi clip too if it is not.

[Bill Davis]

If you guys have this right, then sure, multi clip is the right answer.

I just read this….

“I have loaded the .wav as the main story line, and manually synched and stacked all 3 takes on top of the audio.”

And in my brain “3 takes” means three distinct passes with one camera through the same material.

That’s traditionally what “3 takes” means after all.

Now there are plenty of people who mis-apply classic video terms every day – and for all I know, that’s what’s going on here. But he didn’t say 3 angles, or 3 cameras, or three shots – all of which would have put me in the same place you guys appear to be. He said 3 takes.

So my presumption was that he was describing his process accurately and was using a single camera to take three runs through a band playing the same song 3 times – once shooting it CU, once MS, and once Wide.

If so, my advice stands because you can’t convince me that multi-cam will do a professional job if that’s how this was shot.

Maybe he’ll come back and set us straight.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Thoreau Bakker]

Thanks all for the multi cam tip.. It sounds like it might be promising! I’m def. going to try it asap.

Bill,
As a matter of fact, they did play to a click track of sorts, although not digital sync, cause it was the band take.. But still, they listened to the same audio recording each of the three times I recorded the Milli Vanilli video takes ; )

My work is actually pretty sloppy.. My first take I tried to keep the shot pretty steady, the second take I tried to get closer and follow the singer a bit more, and finally I got really up close and more experimental for the close ups (ie. running over to the guitarist during the solo, running back to the singer for the last chorus etc etc).

Haha, I have this problem where the singer doesn’t like all the mic cables on the floor in the master shot (it was in a jam space), and wants me to super impose red / green / gold bars over the floor. BUT, I was panning the camera, so I think that’s going to be crazy to try and mask or something!

Your idea about chunks and V solo etc etc is a good one, and kind of similar to what I’ve been doing.. But it’s still not quite as live as I’ve been hoping for.

I’d like to be able to say, have my hand on three keys as a video switcher (like a/s/d or something?) as it runs, and just jam out with these three video keys.. Wow, imagine I had a usb midi controller to do fades and stuff? That would be even cooler.

Seeing as they did play to a click (kinda) and were just lip synching, I’m hoping this multi cam clip thing will work.

going to watch tut. asap!

Thoreau

[Bill Davis]

Got it.

It’s traditional “pantomime” pop music video production not actual performance recording, so multicam should work great.

Carry on.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor