Best multi-camera color correction work flow?

I'm working on color correcting a multi camera shoot.. they already cut the show, but all the cameras are at different white balances and exposures.

Here are the different shots being used...

Camera 1, Thursday and Friday
Camera 2, Thursday and Friday
Camera 3, Thurs, Fri
Camera 4, Thurs, fri..

so.. overall 8 different camera setups..

I was going through and color correcting each camera/day but it was taking forever.. its a 2 hour performance.

then I tried to separate each day and camera to a different layer then nested them and color corrected..
problem is that when I did that sometimes when I would lift the clip to the next layer it would cover the shot that was original under it.. making changes in the edit..plus dealing with the possible ripple delete was problematic.

Any GOOD work flows for this kind of thing?


Thanks!

When you lift a clip to another layer, hold the shift key so that it doesn't slip left or right.

There's not really any need to nest. Since you have the individual camera/days on individual layers, just CC the first clip to your liking, copy the clip, use the 'select forward' tool (t) to select the entire layer, and then use 'paste attributes' to add the CC filter to all the clips on that layer at once.

If you have any other filters on the clips these will need to be dealt with individually.

I used shift.. but because there are over 200 shots I would let go before it was set once and a while... the problem is also that some clips overlap other clips.. is there another more full proof way?

You could select all the clips you want to change at once with the apple key held down, so that you could select non-contigious clips. That would mean you don't have to separate the clips onto layers.

However, if you've already done the sorting and clips are overlapping, just trim them back so they don't overlap.

> then I tried to separate each day and camera to a different layer then nested them and color
> corrected..
> problem is that when I did that sometimes when I would lift the clip to the next layer it would
> cover the shot that was original under it.. making changes in the edit..plus dealing with the
> possible ripple delete was problematic

One camera per track is how I would have done it. But I see a few issues here:

1. Why nest? Just keep the shots separate, on their own, but on separate tracks. I see no reason why you should be nesting here.
2. I suspect that your timeline wasn't completely clean. Many people like to cut to an insert by just putting the insert clip on top of the other angle. That, to me, is messy editing. If you moved that overlapping clip by mistake, there's no indicator of where it originally was. I'd get into the habit of making "real cuts" -- when you cut from Camera A to Camera B and back, actually razor out that part of Camera A you don't need. It's very easy to make the "hole" follow Camera B if you change the edit. There's a great deal of convenience of having a "hole" that's precisely where the intended edit should be. And that way, you can tell "junk" (eg. a shot you left on a top track, had been intending to use but didn't end up making it) from real edits at a glance, and it's a lot harder to accidentally change your edit.
3. You can use Copy/Paste Attributes to apply a set of colour-correction filters to multiple clips, or you can put that set of filters into a bin in the Browser, then select all the clips you want to apply it to in the timeline, and drag the bin onto them ("Filter Packing". You can also open one clip that already has the filters, switch to the first clip's Filters tab in the Viewer, select the clips in the timeline, then drag the filters from the "template" clip's Filters tab onto the clips in the timeline. Basically, it's my way of saying: Don't nest. It ain't worth it. Learn to manage multiple filters in economical ways, and stick to the one-camera-per-track technique.


www.derekmok.com

Another tip:

When you're just adding filters (eg. colour correction) and don't want to change the edit, use the Group Selection tool (GG) rather than the Arrow tool. That Group Selection tool only allows you to draw lassos and select clips in the timeline, and open things into the Viewer; it doesn't do any timeline edit functions (eg. roll, ripple, drag/drop) that can mess up your edits. But you can still double-click clips to open them, and you can work the Viewer window. That's a great way to make sure you don't move/change things by mistake in the timeline. And of course, Group Selection also does a good job if you're selecting multiple items in your timeline to apply filters to.


www.derekmok.com