Multicam Doc Timeline Workflow

TimTyler wrote on 3/2/2010, 8:14 PM
I've cut many multicam music performance pieces using Vegas, but this doc-style multicam project is new for me.

I have an A-camera track and a B-camera track in sync on the timeline with content from five hour-long interviews that need to be cut down to about ten minutes.

The two cameras used were not of the same type and were not started and stopped at the same time, so whereas the A-camera track might be made up of ten clips per interview, the B-camera track might be fifty clips per interview. A-camera has the close-ups and B-camera is the wide shot.

My first creative step will be do pull selects from the timeline that I can whittle down into the final ten minute movie.

I know I can group clips and tracks, but for that to be effective when slicing and maintaining sync between the two cameras I would need to permanently attach all the clips from each interview end to end, effectively creating a single clip per track for each interview. Then I could group the tracks and slice. Is that possible?

The idea here is to edit the movie two tracks per cut and then, after it's cut for content, I would get to choose between the wide shot or close-up.

Am I approaching this wrong? Any suggestions?

Comments

baysidebas wrote on 3/3/2010, 7:24 AM
I do a lot of 3 camera interviews in the course of a year, most of them averaging between 60 and 90 minutes. What has worked for me, when I need edited material, is to do a full length "line cut" of the raw video. Once I'm satisfied with that, I render it out to a new file and use that as the source to slice and dice the short version(s). If I've done my job right in phase 1 then I will not have to go back to the original 3 cam footage, if not, it isn't a big deal to insert replacement footage in the final edit.

I do have an advantage over your situation in that I run the 3 cameras continuously and record directly to a laptop, as well as to tape (belt and suspenders approach). Once I got the 3 streams synched (and I'd like to thank the kind soul on this forum that first brought PluralEyes to my attention) doing the first "line cut" is done mostly in real time. Then a little more time is spent in tweaking the edit points before rendering.

A DVD with TC burnt in is then forwarded to the producer who then creates an EDL for the final cut.

This workflow works for me extremely well and should work well for others with similar needs.
bsuratt wrote on 3/3/2010, 7:29 AM
First, put all clips in chronological order on a clean timeline just as you have done with Cam1 on track A, Cam 2 on Track B.

Then, use PluralEyes to sync both tracks. This will automatically position all of clips at their correct location (sync) on both tracks more accurately than you can do it manually. Then group the clips so as to maintain position.

Now you are ready to use the multicam editing feature of Vegas to cut your film. Actually you should use the "split" function to cut the time line at the in/out points and then remove the unwanted section.



TimTyler wrote on 3/3/2010, 8:51 AM
I've already used the magical PluralEyes to sync everything up.

Maybe I'll give Vegas' Multicam a try, but I have a feeling that works better for switching, not for content editing. I also wish that Multicam allowed us to separate the camera tracks once all the switching was complete, like if it would undo the track merge once the editor was done with the Multicam feature.

I've found that if i GROUP all the clips on the A-cam track, and then all the clips on the B-camera track, that grouping is undone if I group the A track to the B track and then start slicing. That's a sync problem.

I guess what i want to do is LINK all the B-camera footage to A-camera footage, and then just edit the A-camera clips for content. When the content edit is done in a few weeks, I could quickly switch-in the B-camera shots.
marks27 wrote on 3/3/2010, 1:53 PM
Another option could be:

1. Do the multi-cam mix in proj-A

2. Open new project, open the proj-A veg files in the trimmer or timeline and slice and dice to your hearts content.

This way way if you need to tweak you can just open the nested project in another vegas instance, adjust, save and the the master project will reflect the changes

marks
bsuratt wrote on 3/3/2010, 6:31 PM
<< I also wish that Multicam allowed us to separate the camera tracks once all the switching was complete, >>

Actually, you can. Remember that the multi cam tracks are stacked as takes. You can switch takes on a clip and the other camera view is there.

In a case like you describe I would approach it by doing a real time multi cam edit to set the best shots, then cut out what you don't need, then tweak the remaining clips and assemble into the final edit.