Complicated MULTIcam Question

As the subject line suggests, this is a complicated question, so please bear with me. (and for those who follow the Apple boards, this same post is over there, so feel free to skip it if you've read it already).

Okay, so I'm pretty new to using multicam, but I have edited one project so far with multiple camera angles (typically only 2). Now I'm moving onto a project which was shot with 4 cameras, all with free-run time code, but that all started and stopped on their own whims. i.e., none of the footage is continuous, but the timecode is.

My first thought was to create individual multiclips going through each shot and matching it up with one or more other shots. The problem with this, I've found, is that in some instances one camera recorded continuously for 30 minutes, when another camera started and stopped during that same 30 minutes on average every five minutes, thus leaving gaps and footage of not uniform length.

For sake of simplicity, let me try to explain this in the following - simpler - example.

CAMERA A - shoots continuously for 30 minutes
CAMERA B - shoots for 5 minutes. Off for 30 seconds. Back on for 3 minutes. Off for 1 minute. etc.

I decided that using the Create Multiclip Sequence function might be appropriate (using overlapping timecode), but when I tried this, in the multiclip that was created at every point Camera B stopped and started, a new ANGLE was created. At one point, I ended up with 15 different angles! The reason being, is that each clip that Camera B creates is considered a new angle in the multiclip, even when there are several clips marked "Angle 1", and perhaps this is part of the problem (it doesn't know what to do with more than one "Angle 1". The end result is that CAMERA B would start in one Angle box, then the next shot would be in another Angle box, and so on.

So instead of going on and on about my problem, here is the solution that I'm trying to reach.

4 camera angles, with footage of each camera starting at the beginning of the recording session (about 2 1/2 hours long), and running all the way to the end, with black between each gap of time a camera started and stopped.

Now, I'm thinking that the only way I can accomplish this is to edit a new sequence for each camera, cutting in every shot in sequence (which would have matching timecode), and then output ONE FINAL clip. After 4 clips (one for each camera) I would THEN group the 4 in ONE really long multiclip.

The only issue with this would be the time and space it would take to create the new clips (and I neglected to mention that this is an HDV project, so the transcoding alone could take days).

I'm really not sure what I should be doing next, and I don't anticipate a ton of responses to this post, but if ANYone has ANY idea of how to proceed, I would be FOREVER greatful.



Daniel Greeney
Dual 2.5 GHz G5
10.4.6
2 Gigs Ram

I'd bail on mutli-clip and do it the old fashioned way.

One track for each camera. Timeline=real time.
checker-board in the cameras as they recorded.

Dupe the timeline and start razoring out the crap.
use clip enable to turn on and off clips as needed.

Ian

If you are recording HDV tapes you get 60 minutes, less a few seconds for startup. The purpose of using MultiCam editing is so that you have different angles of the same footage in time.

I guess I don't follow the Cam B on-off-on-off reasoning? On most cameras, if you switch off the camera, not just hit the stop button, you get a new timecode at 00:00:00;00 when restarting and that will throw off the multi-clips lining up in time.

For 2 or more cameras shooting the same footage from different vantage points, you would stagger the start of each camera so that you never need to change more than one tape at a time. Use a light flash or a unique sound for syncing up the 2 or more clips to the same time in space.

Does the timecode match?

How about creating 4 timlines, one for each camera. Match the code of all 4.

Place each camera's running takes in the correct postitions on each timeline. Make new QT movies of all 4. Re-imort the 4 timelines and make a multiclip from them.

This will be damn near impossible unless the cameras have matching code.

-Vance

John, the cameras have free run timecode (not record run), so it constantly runs, regardless of whether the cameras are start or stop recording. (Sometimes this is called Time-of-day TC).

Vance, your idea is what I'm trying. It's taking up more space, and taking a lot longer to do, though I'm bouncing everything down to NTSC (since that's what we're finishing on anyway), so it's not as long as if I had to re-transcode everything to HDV again.

Thanks for your help, guys. I'll let you know tomorrow how it works out.



Dan

Do it Ian's way. When your cameras are shooting at different times, Multiclip is a liability, not an asset. Just create Motion Paths for split-screens on the angles if you really need to see all angles at the same time.

If you come up with suitable solution, please be sure to close all posts to all FCP forums where you've started similar threads. We'd all be interested in knowing how you fix this.

I'm leaning toward the old fashioned way, too.

bogiesan

With respects -Non jam-sync'd cameras, multiple and coordinated start stops leads me to assume that we can't count on ALL the cameras being dead on the nuts tc-wise for the duration of a 2.5 hr event.

I bet you'll have a problem if you take the approach of a timeline for each camera. You need a rock solid base tc for a show. That will only come from a single FCP timeline.

Nick Myers outlined the multi cam approach years ago - before the official feature in FCP. There are lots of variations on this work flow - Here's one suggestion:

Drop camera shots into timeline - one track for each camera, and slide the shots till they are in sync ( use method of choice for that)
Assign a quad split corner for each camera. We'd have to render (??? on a quad g5 you might even get rt playback???)
Run through using the blade tool and do a fast "live cut"
Rather than delete cut material use ^B on the "cut" material and clip disable it
Add a track on top(V5) - and bump the keeper shots up to it.
Copy the top row to a new timeline
Remove Attributes/motion on the new timeline.
You now have a "close call" edit - all on one track. Trim edits as appropriate. Need to check back on other shots? Load your quad split timeline, turn everything back on, and gang it to matching tc.

Ian

Stop spinning yer wheels on multicam mate. When your camera operators are starting and stopping cams, it's time to go to the old fashioned method.



Kevin Monahan
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Daniel,

i cut a 2 hr concert film a few years ago in FCP4.1

since Multiclip had come out i've given it some thought, but i haven't actually cut a show using it.

in your situation there are 2 ways to go.

1 MULTICLIP

lay out all your clips in a timeline, stacking the angles, & placing gaps where needed.
EVERY TIME a new clip starts, BLADE THE STACK.
you then make separate multiclips for each bladed section.
it doesn't matter if a section is as short as 10 seconds long, it still has to be it;s own multi clip.

to make the multiclips drag each section of clips to a bin and make the multiclip based on IN POINT.
drag a section, make a multiclip,
drag a section, make a multiclip,
etc

2 THE "OLD FASHIONED" WAY

this is a whole other post!
and this post and many others like it already exisit.
if you do a search you'll find many discussions from pre-FCP5 days on how we all approached it.

one annoying thing:
with the introduction of version 5 FCP has lost a useful fuction:
the wonderful "Follow" mode of Playhead Sync.
when i did my multicam project, "Follow" mode was indispensable, and if i were to do another one,
i;d probably load up FCP4.1 and work in there.

i can probably outline what i did if you cant find the posts,
but just not right now.

3 EXPORT YOUR TRACKS AS REFERENCE MOVIES

this is what you were thinking of doing.
if you export as a reference movie, then you wont need too much extra space.
it would probably work,
it used to worry me no end that once you export that track, you cant easily trace back to the original clip, or part of the tape
but if your TC is TOD, then i think it *would* be easy to trace back.

A- just make sure that you give those exports the correct TC.
they will take their TC from hte sequnce, so you could set the nsequnce TC to match the cameras' TC, and each export will have correct TC.

B- give each export a REEL#
exporting from a timeline they wont have one.
the Reel# is important for going back to tape, obviously,
but less obvious, you cant use Media Manager to trim the clips if needed without a reel#

gotta go now,
hope that helps,
nick

i'm back!

ok, i missed that the footage was HDV, so the reference movie might not be as simple as i thought.
the exporting could take longer than you want.
and i dont know if the files would be true "reference" files as new media might need to be created.


interesting point - can you make reference files from HDV sequences?
that is, files that are both:
A- small (containing no media, but referring back to the original captured clips)
and
B- fast to make

more importantly perhaps, how does HDV cope with RT playback of the 3 angles at once?


in theory, though, and outside of HDV considerations, i think that a reference file system would work well, and safely IF you've shot with ToD TC.
you'd have to keep your original track lay-out well protected,
as well as the original media files.
(if you lose one of the original the reference movie wont work)


cheers,
nick

Hi all, and sorry for the delay.

I very much appreciate everyone's opinions, and while the majority of you thought it would be best to go the "old fashioned" method, I decided instead to create multiclip sequences of each camera angle (let me clarify - if I select all of the clips from one camera angle and select "create multiclip sequence" it will place them all in sequence in order with the correct black gaps where the camera was off. So in this case, it isn't a multiclip, it's just multiple single clips cut into sequence automatically based on TC). I then took each of these 4 sequences (one for each camera angle), and exported them out to one very long DV NTSC Quicktime. It took many hours (about 3-4 per sequence), but the end result, I think, was worth it.

So now, I have 4 3hr DV clips, which I then mulitcliped. After some tweaking of the sync points, I finally got it so that I have exactly what I was trying to get. Unfortunately, I had to downconvert to DV (from HDV), and in doing so I also forgot about the upper/lower field discrepancy. Now, when I do my output to MPEG for DVD, I'll need to compensate and adjust for that, but in the meantime, it looks fine on my computer (I'm not previewing to a NTSC monitor via firewire, for a few reasons, but one of them being this field order business).

So everything seems to be working out okay. Now, if only the cameras had been color balanced properly (believe me, this was not a professional shoot).

And Nick, to answer your question, HDV multicam works farily well, at least on my Dual 2.5 Ghz G5. However, in the past I have only done 3 angles. 4 or more might get bogged down.

Thanks again for everyone's help. I'll keep you updated if I have other issues / problems.

"if I select all of the clips from one camera angle and select "create multiclip sequence" it will place them all in sequence in order with the correct black gaps where the camera was off"

hey, that's cool!
why did you have to down-convert?
export time?

because of the ToD, i think you'll be ok to reconnect to your HDV once you've locked off.
it wont be that easy, but it wont be impossible, either.

otherwise there's the "Shift Fields" filter in Video Effects > Video


cheers,
nick