multicam clip is black

[Joe Marler]

The issue is when the black timeline thumbnails happen, does the multicam have footage on the MONITORED ANGLE? When you select a monitoring angle in the angle viewer, you are telling FCP “show me only this angle in the viewer”. Inside the multicam there may be footage at the playhead position — but if that footage is not on the monitored angle, it will show black thumbnails in the main timeline.

You can see the effect in real-time by clicking on different angles in the angle viewer. The moment you click another angle, the timeline thumbnails will change to that angle. If at some point in the timeline there is no footage for the monitored angle inside the multicam, the timeline thumbnails will go black.

Some camera codec formats have metadata that identifies the camera and you don’t need to label the camera in the inspector. However many (maybe most) do not, so it’s always necessary to label all the clips from each camera or recorder with a camera name or angle name in the inspector — before creating the multicam clip. Then the multicam will assemble correctly, it won’t have that “stair step” appearance, and you won’t see large black regions in the timeline.