Premiere Multi-Cam - do you bother?

[Dan Burnap]

For my wedding ceremony edits I'll typically have 3 video tracks with 4 or more audio tracks.

In the past I have experimented with using the multi-cam feature but found it more trouble than it's worth. I'm using CS6 now and am wondering whether to give it another go and see if it makes my life easier.

How do you find it? Do you swear by it or does it just make you swear?

[Adrian Tan]

Can't live without it.

Using CC now, but don't recall problems with CS6.

[Dave Partington]

Using multicam speeded up edits of ceremony and speeches dramatically over the old checkerboard way of doing things.

We often also edit multicam at double speed and just refine the edit points as needed. That was much harder in CS6 because of the silly audio chipmunk effect, but that's not a problem in FCPX and I understand now in CC.

[Rob Cantwell]

i use it all the time and it works quite well, once you have it synced beforehand, it's easy enough to fine tune after as well.

[Clive McLaughlin]

I seem to remember trying to move to Prem CC and having lots of trouble with multicam. I then moved back to Vegas. Think I had a thread about it if you want to search for it.

[Max Palmer]

I've tried the multicam feature a couple of times, but what I can't understand is how the audio works. I don't record live audio directly to cam, I always drop in a synced track from a recorder. But if I drop my tracks into a sequence, sync them up, and then enable multi-cam, the audio isn't included when I nest the seuqence someplace else. Anyone have a clue about this?

[Dave Partington]

@Max - Premiere Pro multicam audio sucked big time..... so here is what I used to do (CS6).

1) Make the sequence with all the multicam tracks synced.

2) Create the multicam sequence

3) Alt-click the audio (this selects only the audio, not the video) on the multicam sequence (from step 2) and DELETE it.

4) Alt-drag-select all the audio from the original sequence (from step 1) and copy it (again the alt-click selects only the audio not the video).

5) Paste the copied audio in to the multicam sequence

This lets you edit the video in multicam but still gives you all the audio from all the tracks all the way through so you can mix that as needed later on.

[Max Palmer]

So, as you saying essentially this sort of nesting arrangement:

Multicam video sequence > Multicam video nested into a sequence with pasted audio track > Nested into final sequence?

[Leon Bailey]

I haven't tried it with a wedding yet. Only done it with music. It is cool until I get to 4+ angles then it slows down. Might give it a go with a wedding one day to see how I like it.

[Paul Ekert]

Long time lurker to this area of the forum, but I think this is my first post to the Wedding / Event area. Great place for information, spent several hours reading through threads last night... But I digress.

I do a lot of editing for wedding videographers. Generally they send me USB hard drive with the footage, hopefully a constant sound file from a tascam or zoom, any elements I might need (such as music, PPT files and their company logo) and stuff like that. Sometimes this is a single cam (which can make for an incomplete edit...) but often it is 2, 3, 4, and with the GoPro's leaping into the arena, 5 cams of wedding goodness :)

I've got an i7 System with USB 3 on the mainboard so I am able to edit directly from USB 3 drives, and using the new version of Premiere Pro, my editing life is a lot simpler than it was say 10 or even 5 years ago.

My basic Multicam workflow will be:

1) create a New project file directly on the USB 3 drive, that way when I send the drive back the videographer has a copy of the project that's up to date. I also define the USB drive for scratch, which I was avoiding until I tried it and found the i7+USB 3 combination really does seem to be able to handle that sort of overhead. Sometimes I get a stutter on the timeline, but if I stop the playback, count for 1 Mississippi and press play again it will all be playing fine, that's even with 5 streams of full HD including the GoPro. I've not yet tried this with 4K!

2) import the footage and sort in to various bins so that each part of the day (ceremony, reception, first dance) are separated. This makes the synchronization of cameras a little easier for the sync software.

3) create a new sequence (call it PreSync_Ceremony) and drag all the clips from camera 1 to track 1, camera 2 to track 2 and so on. Each set of clips is directly over the others, no attempt at syncing is made at this point.

4) drag the Tascam or Zoom audio onto the bottom audio track (allowing Premiere to create on for me by dropping the clip below the master track).

I'm all set. Now I cheat.

5) using the extension manager connection (Window > Extensions > PluralEyes 3.5) I send the sequence PreSync_Ceremony to Plural Eyes 3.5. This can take a bit of time to import all the clips and to recognize the audio.

6) Once done, I hit the sync button in the Plural Eyes 3.5 interface and leave it do it's stuff. Sometimes I am supplied with audio files that do not match the rate of the video and Plural Eyes will do some "Audio Drift Correction" for me, which is nice.

7) Once this has completed I hit the Export button, which creates a project in the Premiere bin where the clips are stored (I sometimes forget this and wonder where it has gone). Double clicking the sequence created by Plural eyes will open up a Timeline that should have all the clips in sync.

8) Some clips can get lost in the mix (Plural Eyes will warn me about that during the sync process) and I will scan through the timeline to drag and drop these clips to their correct position. Depending on how the quality of the constant audio track, this step may take a few minutes to an hour to complete.

9) Once I am happy with the integrity of the Sync, I rename it to Ceremony_Synchronized (notice I have reversed the order of the words here to stop me becoming confused later in the edit), right click on the actual sequence in the project panel and select Make New Sequence from Clip (or something like that).

10) Once the clip has opened on the timeline I rename this new sequence Ceremony_Multicam and I right click on the the actual clip on this new timeline and select MultiCam>Enabled (Important!).

11) I return to the Ceremony_Syncronized timeline and copy (ctrl+C) ALL the audio tracks, then paste (ctrl+V) them onto the Ceremony_Mutlicam timeline (making sure to disable Video and Audio 1 tracks so the video and audio I paste in will appear on tracks 2 and above (make sure you have enough tracks to do this before you paste!). Lastly I Mute audio track 1 as I no longer need that.

12) Okay, I now hit the Mutlicam monitor button to display the Mulitcam interface, hit play and at last I can start to edit Multicam.

13) I scan each edit point to make sure there are no camera movements on either side of the edit point.

14) I review the audio output of each track and decide which audio tracks need to be playing, then using the PEN tool I create dips and fades. If I have used Extracted sections of the ceremony I use Constant Power audio transition to smooth out the change between the two.

15) By now I will have an idea on which cameras will need to be colour balanced, so I return to the Ceremony_Syncronized timeline and add colour corrections as required. Anything I do in this sequence will be updated automatically in the Ceremony_Mutlicam sequence so I need to be careful to only correct color and not accidentally move a clip or anything like that.

16) Once done, I repeat this with the other sections of the wedding to create Multicam edits for reception, first dance and so on. If there is a live band and the camera man is on the ball, editing this section can be like editing your own private music video :)

17) The final step is to create a new Sequence called "Complete_Wedding" or something like that, then drag and drop each Multicam sequence onto this Master Sequence. Here I can opening titles and closing company logos as required.

18) If the wedding videographer wants to see the final output before I return the drive I send them just the PremPro Project file via Google drive or Dropbox. If I have created titles in AE, I use the new Render & Replace to create smaller video files that I can send along with the project file.

And that's all there is to it :) Honestly, how do I justify my hourly rate ;)

Yes it does seem like a faff when it's laid out like this, but to be honest with you, doing it like this saves me so much time, and once you have done this procedure, the second time round is no problem. And once a timeline has been correctly synced up, editing it really is a breeze. I wouldn't edit multicam any other way now. I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the patch work timelines of non-multicam, although if there is no constant audio file I am sometimes forced to do just that :(

A real problem when dealing with the enormous timelines that are Indian or South Asian weddings!

Sorry this was such an epically long post. In another part of my life I am a writer, so long posts are sadly something I can never be cured of.

Let me know if I have cocked up the procedure here at all. Tapping this out on my tablet so I cannot check the correct menu selections. Plus it's Sunday morning...

Anyway, I hope this will be of help to someone.


Paul

[Mark Whittle]

Tips for Multicamera Synchronization in Premiere Pro | Strypes In Post

Great tips there. The important one for me is first putting all the clips and audio for the multi cam in one bin.

The next is once the multi cam sequence is created, to right click and "open in timeline". Here you can tweak your audio levels, slip a clip into sync if it wasn't quite right, add colour corrections or rescale your 4k or whatever, and in my case, add the subsequent clips (that were broken by the 4GB limit).

I also find my audio files from the zoom H4 tend to drift over time so in here I can slice and slip them back into sync.

[Paul Ekert]

For the audio file drift, check your recorder is set to the same kHz. You'll probably find that 48kHz is the rate at which your camera samples audio. If you have your audio set to sample at lower (say 44.1kHz) then you will see a drift, but as you say, it is fairly easy to correct.

I see drift in some multicam edits that I am asked to do and I know the settings are correct, so in that case it is the quality of the audio device that's in question not the operators skill. Most of the sync drift issues that I see are on audio recordings lasting in excess of 90 minutes.

The multicam link you've posted is a pretty good one, but I don't know of a way to include an audio track from a recorder in the multicam sync when using this particular method. Also, if this method fails for to find a sync for one or more clips it won't produce a sequence no matter how nicely you ask it :(

This method will work, it will save you buying pluraleyes (at $199 it is not cheap!), but it will be hit and miss method, you won't be able to include a tascam or zoom audio track (far as I know), and if there is any audio drift you will have to correct it yourself (plural eyes will attempt to this for you).

Lastly, the right click 'open in timeline' option is I believe only available if you right click on the sequence in the Project Panel, not when you click on the sequence on the Timeline track.

I'm not at my editing station right now, so if anyone sees any errors with the above, please feel free to correct me.

Paul

[Mark Whittle]

Originally Posted by Paul Ekert

The multicam link you've posted is a pretty good one, but I don't know of a way to include an audio track from a recorder in the multicam sync when using this particular method. Also, if this method fails for to find a sync for one or more clips it won't produce a sequence no matter how nicely you ask it :(

This method will work, it will save you buying pluraleyes (at $199 it is not cheap!), but it will be hit and miss method, you won't be able to include a tascam or zoom audio track (far as I know), and if there is any audio drift you will have to correct it yourself (plural eyes will attempt to this for you).

Lastly, the right click 'open in timeline' option is I believe only available if you right click on the sequence in the Project Panel, not when you click on the sequence on the Timeline track.

I'm not at my editing station right now, so if anyone sees any errors with the above, please feel free to correct me.

Paul

I should point out the link I provided is demonstrating Premiere CC2014 not CS6 as the OP is using. There are differences. Multicam is much improved in the latest version.

The audio still drifts in 48k if the sync points are not precise. I used markers as my sync points last time as the audio files were very different but there was a recognisable common point. The physical distance of the audio recorders from each other didn't help either.

Maybe you tried using audio as a sync method and it failed for whatever reason, but you can indeed use audio tracks in your multi cam.

Make sure in the create multi cam source sequence dialogue box that audio/sequence settings is changed from camera 1 to all cameras so you get all the audio files in your new sequence. You may also have to select a suitable sequence preset here as well. I would link to a good video tutorial on this but I can't find the darn thing. (Im on a different machine without my bookmarks)

That is correct: the 'open in timeline' option works from the project panel, so you can see a separate "un-nested" view of the clips that make up your multi cam sequence and move things around, add clips, add filters, mix your audio. You can do this before during or after editing your multi cam sequence because any changes you do are instantly reflected in your multi cam sequence.

I hope that makes sense.