How many of you use multiple cameras on a shoot?

M

Mickey Munday

Well-known member
i'm considering buying the 170 and use my hvx200 as a b camera for my short films and features. i'm curious to know how many of you shoot with the hvx200 and the 170 on the same shoot and if there is a major difference in quality i should be concerned with?

the last thing i want to do is end up with different variations of the same image...will the "average person" realize the difference is moreso what i'm getting at

also, i've never shot with 2 cameras before, how would i handle audio? use audio from the main camera that has the boom mic and just syc up the B cam video of the same clip on a different layer in FCP?

thanx in advance
 
I just did a shoot last week with my 170 and rented HVX200. They will never match exactly, if they did, who would be buying the 170 when used 200s are such a bargain right now? They are close. You can see some stills in my HPX170 article here, scroll down 2/3 of the way and you will see still frame grabs captured with both the 170 and the 200 and can compare them.
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/hpx_170_evolution_brockett.html

They are in the same ballpark, but 170 has more detail and is cleaner. Shoot a grayscale chip chart and try to setup the two as closely as possible, which is harder than it sounds because Panasonic shifted the amount of adjustment in three different, important settings but if you run them to the same monitor with multiple inputs and A/B them back and forth for 10 minutes, you can get them pretty close. Close enough for the average viewer in most cases.

Dan
 
nice. yea so they are pretty close though.

how do you handle audio when shooting with multiple cameras? is one cam just not meant to get the "best audio" or boomed audio and you just overlay the clips?
 
Good question. I edit in Final Cut Studio 2. Using the multiclip function in FCP, you can switch with picture and audio, picture only and audio only. I have found the easiest method is to have the sound mixer feed both cameras a summed mix of all of the talent, unless you have specific reasons to do separate channel breakouts. It depends on the type of project you are shooting.

I did a two camera shoot last week and we wanted to do this because it makes the audio post simpler when cutting with multiclip but it got a little crazy because we have six channels of wireless going into two cameras with an occasional use of boom to follow a conversation and we had a Sanken CUB-O1 PZM as a table mic where a lot of the talent were at a table, having a discussion. We were in a stupid position with audio, no rehearsal and we didn't know who was going to speak when so we just muddled through it. We ended up splitting out the cameras with a different feed going to each, although that will be a pain in the editing.

The sound mixer owned a Sound Devices 788T, I should have had him use that, but in the beginning, the client told me we only needed to worry about hearing just a few of the trainers, not the entire room full of people but of course, as the shoot went on, there were more and more conversations between the attendees and the trainers and everyone else so we had to have up to eight channels of mics at once to four channels of camera audio.

I should have used the 788T, everyone could have had their own channel and life would have been easier but I didn't want to spend the extra budget, yada, yada, yada. Live and learn with corporate clients, what they say will happen and will really happen are often two completely different things ;-)

Dan
 
Mickey... I wouldn't really consider doing another feature or TV show without shooting atleast 2 cameras. It gives so many more options in post and it really doesn't require too much additional work if you are organized. Here's a couple of my tips or guides as it work.


1. Synching the cameras is really easy.. even just manually and after days and days of rolling... as long as your batteries don't die while rolling or something... then it will remain fairly close in synch after days and days. After a 5 days hoot last year, my two cameras were only 2 frames out of synch...


2. Get yourself a decent HD monitor.. Calibrate it as much as you can to your main camera and then A/B the two of them. If you want to get really tricky.. bring out a little video mixer and do a live switch and you can wipe back and forth and really get everything nailed down together..


3. Shoot gray card, color chart, do a white balance at the beginning of every major scene.. this will help you tremendously if you are off between the two camera.


4. In terms of doing multiple camera audio... it will be very important to get a good audio guy who routes thing to appropriate cams. It might be easiest to put lavs on one camera and boom and plant mikes on the other. You could also send dual signals and have one camera a bit hotter than the other..


5. When in doubt.. bring out a laptop with your NLE software on it. Do a quick on set edit or tests to make sure you are good. I think this is so easy to do and so overlooked. When I do a feature, there will definitely be an on-set editor as it saves me time in post, allows me to make sure what I'm doing works, and shows me right away if I have mistakes I need to fix on location.


6. Shooting two cameras.. will greatly cut down on the amount of time for set-ups and in doing covering and it allows actors to be more free and cut loose as you have something too cut too, and it doesn't have to be duplicated exactly the same way... and with the same robotic nature..
 
I shoot allot with 2 cameras... and sometimes up to 5 cameras.. for live performance's..

I find it really hard to match camera's ... last week I shot with my 200 and an EX1... the footage from the EX was totally dull and lifeless compared to the 200... but with a little grading the footage came in pretty close...

I always just use one main audio feed and the rest is for syncing... in smaller situations I just do a hand clap and both camera's pick up the audio and that's my sync point...

Colour grading is your best friend...

I also use FCP 2 but don't normally use mulitcam... I just line them up in the timeline...

Normally my wide shot is on the bottom of the stack and the other camera's sit on top...

Then it's just a matter of picking the best shot for the scene...

Also really easy to add Colour Correction Filters as they all have their own track on the timeline.. and in FCP you just highlight them all and drop on the CC filter...

Cheers..

PS.. I always edit first and then worry about CC..
 
justin thats some really cool tips man!

lez, thats how i was thinking in my head of doing it before posting, i'll def have to experiment. so u dont CC each indiviual clip in FCP? i've never highlighted the entire clips and added one filter, actually i didnt know u could do that since u can only preview one clip at a time right?
 
Lez:

Why would you NOT use multiclip in FCP? It is soooo much easier than doing it the way you do it. Do the upgrade if you need to to get it or if you already have it, give it a try. It is really easy and it inreases your editing efficiency by tenfold over cutting manually in the TL. You barely have to even crack the manaul to figure it out.

In editing, the faster you can do things, the more money you are making.

Dan
 
puredrifting said:
Lez:

Why would you NOT use multiclip in FCP? It is soooo much easier than doing it the way you do it. Do the upgrade if you need to to get it or if you already have it, give it a try. It is really easy and it inreases your editing efficiency by tenfold over cutting manually in the TL. You barely have to even crack the manaul to figure it out.

In editing, the faster you can do things, the more money you are making.

Dan
Click to expand...

Thanks might give it a try next time.. but the reason behind each camera having it's own timeline is that I find it really easy to CC that way..

I just highlight all clips in the timeline and drop the CC filter onto them...

Would you not have to individually go through each clip in Multi-cam???

Also if I'm doing a long show.. 3hrs +.. I quite often getting material in a variety of sources.. P2.. Mini DV.. AVC Intra.. DvCam.. so there is usually a variety of sync points I have to line up...

When the boys are shooting DV... the tapes are generally about 80mins long.. and there's a gap in the sequence as they load a new tape...

Cheers
 
Simple. Drop clips in timeline. Add 3 way and CC. Then use those CC'd clips to make your multiclips. Piece of cake. As long as you have a handclap or slate, it is too easy.

Dan
 
Last year I did a two camera documentary shoot with HPX 500 and HVX 200. I took both cameras to a digital image tech who calibrated the cameras to have the same look. He did the battery of tests/comparisons with color charts, focus charts, waveform, rgb, etc... showing me the + and -'s of each camera and gave me matching scene files. Also using the Panasonic BT LH80W HD monitor with focus-in-red fuction was essential.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top