Workflow: Pluraleyes + FCP + 5D + H4N – Overambitious?

[Al Bergstein]

It seems you have enough power to drive Pluraleyes. Should it take that long???? My experiences were not near as long, though I didn’t run as many takes as you did… I’ve not experienced this long a churn. But yes, you’ve graduated to needing the 702t. Become a pro. Sounds like you are close already. Or an edirol??? Or just get a real HD camera with XLR in and record it properly to begin with? An AF100 might do the job. Do you really need a 7d or 5d to do this kind of simple recording? Ambitious might be a correct term, or using the right tool for the right job…I use my HMC 150 and Mixpre rather than my 7d for long running interviews. Or add an Edirol…Simplifies everything. You are working too hard for an interview….(G)

Alf

[Jason Brown]

Hey alf,

While I agree that it is alot of work for an interview…it’s a great look compared to a standard 1/3 or 2/3 type camera with standard efp or eng lens.

I think the solution is simply back to basics….clap a slate. We used to do it when film was only option.

[Al Bergstein]

Agreed. Best of luck.

Alf

[Kai Cheong]

Hi all,

Good to see such a vigorous discussion and thanks for all the tips. An update on my situation: I’ve learnt my lesson not to throw all I have at Pluraleyes and expect it to sync while I scoot off. Paying penance for it now on New Year’s Eve, redoing my sync and manually syncing the ones Pluraleyes can’t manage 😉

A few things I’ll be looking out for in future projects – both in terms of my own workflow and in instructions to my crew [I think I’m fortunate that our regular freelance DP is very open to suggestions to make my life easier!]

– Cam mic on the 5D needs to be turned on louder. Some of the audio was too soft since the shots were fairly wide

– Was clued in by another editor that if my shoot has a soundman, to feed a signal from the mixer into the 5D for clearer audio

– To break down and organize my footage into scenes before I pluraleyes them separately. It makes it more manageable for me to do my manual sync correction as well.

– Get my AP on set to slate [though for this current project, my director’s loud “action!” is working very well as an audio slate]

I think the slating will help since like what Phil encountered, my talents are spouting similar lines so Pluraleyes got quite confused a few times.

The 5D + H4N combination works pretty well for our needs [nice visuals at a good budget] – in fact, we use it more than our Sony Z1-P. Just need to develop an efficient and logical workflow. For this project, it helped that our soundman had set the clock on the H4N, so there is some semblance of ‘time of day TC’, which made it easier for me to group the scenes.

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
https://kai-fcp-editor.blogspot.com
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[Bruce Sharpe]

Kai, send a message to support at singularsoftware dot com. That way we can get some more details and make specific suggestions. PluralEyes should be able to handle your project and we are always interested in investigating cases where it doesn’t produce the expected results.

Bruce Sharpe
Singular Software

Bruce
—
Bruce Sharpe
Singular Software Inc.
http://www.singularsoftware.com

[Mike Fly]

I’ve been using the H4n with my T2i for a while now and I’ve figured out how to make the syncing process work fairly efficiently – It’s all about the guide track!

The most complicated workflow I’ve done so far was a 2-camera (T2i + 5D) and 7-audio channel (2x Zoom H4n) shoot.

It involved running a Primary H4N with (4 inputs) into a second H4n using the headphone jack (3 mic inputs plus the primary H4n).

Then I split the audio coming out of the Secondary H4n – one line to a set of headphones to monitor, the second I split again – one line to a wireless lav transmitter (the receiver went to our B-Cam) and then a hard line to our A-Cam as sync guide tracks for pluraleyes.

I shot and dumped cards on a per scene basis to keep media organized for post.

I used automator to rename the files off the cards (Zoom A and Zoom B) to the file names wouldn’t be a problem.

Then in FCP all I had to do was drop A-Cam on V1 and B-Cam on V2 (both cams gave me a dual mono mix, so I deleted one of the audio tracks on each of them to lighten the workload for pluraleyes).

Then for the audio, I linked the 4 channels (I & M) for each Zoom’s files and put them on tracks 3-6 (Primary H4n) and 7-10 (Secondary H4n).

I sync on a per-scene basis to keep the workload as light as possible for pluraleyes and now, I rarely have a problem.

I’m 30 episodes into a 50 episode web series, and it took me 4 shoot days (about 20 episodes) to figure out this system and it works great. Now my post process is flying by.

If I had another 5D or T2i and a wireless lav for a guide track, I feel confident I could add it to the mix as well.

The only hiccup I’ve had so far is that pluraleyes doesn’t seem to like it when you have over 40 or 50 sequences in your project. I’ve had to break it down into 10-episode batches to keep pluraleyes from having issues.

– Mike

[Bruce Sharpe]

That’s creative!

The issues with having all sequences in the project at once would not be there in Final Cut Pro 7. I believe you are working with an earlier version.

Bruce
—
Bruce Sharpe
Singular Software Inc.
http://www.singularsoftware.com

[Mike Fly]

I am – Version 6.06.

So in FCP 7 you can have an unlimited number of sequences in a project? That’s sweet – that was really my only complaint!

pluraleyes is great software!

Mike Fly
themikefly.com

[Bruce Sharpe]

PluralEyes communicates to FCP through the XML representation of the project. When the project is very complex, that communication channel can break in FCP 6. FCP 7 changed how it works and it is much more robust.

Bruce
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Bruce Sharpe
Singular Software Inc.
http://www.singularsoftware.com