mulit camera edit conventionally

interested in different approaches to cutting 3 cameras with a 4th audio track in the timeline. I'm working thru cutting them with multi-clip which works very well. However, multi-clip takes a lot of steps to set up with 4 tracks.

Before multi-clip, what were some of the techniques to do this?

If you insert camera 1 into the timeline, then take camera 2 into the viewer and find shots to cut into camera 1. Then do the same with camera 3, it's probably very difficult to stay in sync since there is only one common audio (music) track.

If you lay all 3 in sync in the timeline, you can only see one video track at a time right? Makes it sort of counterintuitive to cut 2 cameras into the 3rd.

Is there a better way to do this outside of multi-clip?

FC 5
OS-10-4
pwrbk 17" 2 gigs of ram
firewire 800 capture drive

Forgot to mention, this is DV format, so common timecode is not in play. I have to find in-points on each camera and the audio track (recorded separately) for each song.

> If you lay all 3 in sync in the timeline, you can only see one video track at a
> time right? Makes it sort of counterintuitive to cut 2 cameras into the 3rd.

It's easy. Just make liberal use of the razorblade and CONTROL-B (Clip Enable/Disable). Or shrink down all the angles into a split-screen, pick the shot, razor it to separate from the split-screen master, then use Remove Attributes to remove the scaling.

I kind of like the feel of this way. It's much less complicated to setup than multi-clip. I razored all 3 camera's at each cut point and turned off visibility for the camera(s) not in use. I guess you have to drag them together onto one track though or you won't be able to trim, roll or use those other fine tuning utensils. After you drag down and leave holes in the track, I believe it's good practice to fill them with a slug to prevent slippage??

thx for the reply

> I guess you have to drag them together onto one track though or you won't
> be able to trim, roll or use those other fine tuning utensils.

Actually, you can. For two clips on two separate tracks but adjacent, use the Edit Selection tool (G) and highlight the edges of both clips. Now switch to the Roll tool (R) or key in a number on the number pad and you can roll the edit. Ripple works across all tracks as well.

For multiple synced angles, unless I had to use an in-track transition, I always keep each angle in its own track -- facilitates colour correction, organization, and retrieval of footage. Say you've deleted a part of one of the angles and now want it back -- all you have to do is find one piece of that angle somewhere else in the timeline that's synced, drag it out to cover the new portion, and voila. Another extremely useful technique is to leave at least one piece of each angle synced at timed intervals, even if the angle doesn't look good. I leave the piece in, but disabled (CONTROL-B) in case I need that angle back.

thx man.
Your input is always appreciated.