Syncing XDCAM rushes in FCP

I'm syncing the audio to a short comedy film shot in XDCAM.

The director has stated "We have an edit which only has camera sound, we have the sound files. I need the sound files synced to the shots used in the edit" - Why would the initial editor have not edited with the audio to the visual of each chosen shot?

Preparing to take on the project I'm wondering what on earth the initial editor on this project has done. From this information does anyone have an idea of what may have occurred regards the workflow of the initial edit?

Why would you edit a film using just the audio, or just the visual? (all the material i've ever worked with to-date has had audio recorded with the image) . Perhaps the audio layers have been shifted by mistake and the project file handed back to the director.

I presume it'll simply be a case of right-click 'slip into sync' . .

Any thoughts or feedback appreciated,
WM

My interpretation is that they cut the film without syncing to the properly recorded audio first, so it's cut, and there's sound, but it's just camera mike sound. Now they want the correct sound files added to the cut.

If it's a long piece this could be quite painful. I would think it's going to be about using the match frame key a lot.

It's not so unusual; not every editor has the time, knowledge, responsibility or an assistant to use PluralEyes or some other system to synch up master audio-- in some workflows that's actually left to the sound designer. So editors cut the production track which comes with the footage.

If I were taking this on, I'd match-frame to get every master clip, lay each in a bare timeline, PluralEyes or hand-synch related high quality audio to the master against its camera sound, and after all relevant master clips were synched and merged, (whew!) I'd call each one up again via match frame, inching through the timeline once again, this time to cut the merged quality audio into a duplicate of the sequence.

Yes, depending on whether sound slates identify each master clip scene or take or not, it could be painful. Listen to some sample professional audio recorded for the show. Is there enough (or any) audio slate information to get you into the ballpark for synching a clip? That'l indicate your workload.

- Loren

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> The director has stated "We have an edit which only has camera sound, we have the sound files. I need the sound files synced to the shots used in the edit" - Why
> would the initial editor have not edited with the audio to the visual of each chosen shot?

It's not always the editor's choice. If the producer or director says, "We need a cut in a week", then there's no time to sync.

But if everything was prepped (well, shot/recorded) properly, it's not particularly difficult. Syncing is easiest if you sync everything, but once you have everything lined up, it's just a job doing Match Frame over and over. Modern workflows are much more difficult, however, because fewer and fewer formats come with proper timecode.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks for the advice all,

I have some further questions but will wait until i've got the hard drive and had a look at the timeline,

Cheers,
WM

I ran into a similar situation on a documentary project. Now this is going back almost 7 years and, as Derek mentioned, timecode is much less prevalent than it used to be.
Can't remember the exact conditions of this clustercuss but it came down to having enough information in the first editor's video-only cut to export an EDL ( all the audio tracks had been discarded for a mix that needed to be redone from scratch, no project backups etc).
We were able to get a video EDL exported and using a text editor change all the video cuts to audio cuts and in AVID import and relink to the proper audio sources. It required some finagling of reel names and relied on a rock solid on-set double system TC set up, but we ended up with a 4 track audio cut that matched the video cuts which was enough to get us to where we could figure out the j-cuts and lags without having to do a lot of match framing or listening to endless similar sounding interview clips.
We did a comparison/test/race on the first 5 minutes and the assistant who was doing the match frame method was faster by about 5 minutes. Once I had the technique down though the rest of the hour long show took a couple of minutes.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

. . . right, the assemble has been done using on-camera audio only. So I'll be syncing the boom-mic audio to the chosen takes in the final edited version. There are blank gaps dotted throughout the audio timeline also.

I've also never used PluralEyes or 'match frame' before, so don't really understand the previously suggested workflows. I am unfortunately unable to get PluralEyes as i'm on a zero budget.


I have about 25 to 50 audio files for each scene, they are generically numbered as 033101-002.wav, 033101-003.wav and so on. At the beginning I can hear for example:

"scene 1, slate 4, take one" (then clapper board noise) "scene 3, 1 A, take one" . . . "scene 3, 11 take one" . . . . "scene 3, 8 take 2" etc etc . .


The clips per scene are named A0717001.MOV,A0718001.MOV and so on. Some clips have clapper info such as Scene, Slate, Take, Roll, with the clapper sound but some do not. It's as though they slated the take but then the clip splits and carries on (the latter clip not having and info on the front end)

Quote
Jude
My interpretation is that they cut the film without syncing to the properly recorded audio first, so it's cut, and there's sound, but it's just camera mike sound. Now they want the correct sound files added to the cut.

Yes Jude that is the case! Given this new information of what i'm working with are the prior suggestions still the best approach?

I guess I just go through every single shot / take then by eye and ear match the corresponding audio file. But then how do I 'pair' the audio files with the correct clips? Will i be needing to export an EDL then cut to that re-doing the whole edit but with the audio-synced clips?

Syncing before commencing with an edit is surely the way to go, and strange the previous editor didn't because he was going to be taking care of the whole film, why would anyone knowingly work like this?! Anyway . .

Thanks all,
WM

Notes are your friend. When you locate one audio file that matches a certain scene/shot/take number (eg. on camera reports or script-supervisor reports), put metadata onto that item in FCP (eg. by starting a "Master Comment" column). Sync is not that hard; it's locating the correct takes to marry that takes forever, given the fact that modern tapeless workflows, for both audio and video, result in file names that don't make any sense and aren't related to the actual scene/shot/take numbers.


www.derekmok.com

Once i've synced the right audio to the clips, is there a way I can get the audio to match the clips / takes used in the previously cut edit? Surely i'm not going to have to rebuild the entire edit with the new rushes? . .

ahhh - also i can just sync the takes used, think i'm getting the picture now . .

Match Frame.


www.derekmok.com

Match Frame is a feature whereby you can take a certain frame of a certain clip in the timeline and call up the same frame of that clip from the master clips. And vice versa -- if a master clip is open with the playhead on a certain frame, you can Match Frame and locate that frame if it is also in the timeline.

So, you set the playhead in the timeline to the beginning of a certain audio clip (rough camera audio), Match Frame to call up the master-clip version in the Viewer, and then switch to the sync sequence, Match Frame on the Viewer to locate the place in the sync sequence where that rough camera audio falls, and then use the playhead to determine the equivalent beginning frame on the clean audio.


www.derekmok.com

Cheers for all your contributions you lot and thanks for your time on that Derek, I'll be able to make short work of this now . .

WM,