iPhone Movie Slate and syncing sound with Tascam HD-P2

N

naavt

Well-known member
Hello,

That's been a while now that I've solved my double system sound sync, but I'm now facing that problem again.

I've put my camcorder aside with the advent of the moire free GH2 and I'm preparing a new project. As always, is a documentary where 90% of the footage is "run & gun" style, me and my sound operator with a SD mixer and Tascam recorder.

The problem always was syncing the sound in post. We always have many hours shot at the end of the day and no reference what so ever (apart from the reference sound recorded on camera), to sync image and sound until I've bought a little box that fed my Sony cam LTC to the Tascam recorder. That box saw it's end with the introduction of the GH2 in the system.

So... I was thinking to put the iPhone Movie Slate at use. It says that it has an extra which comes with a cord to feed LTC to any incoming TC source like my Tascam recorder. About this I have 2 questions:

1. Does anyone here have any experience with the iPhone Movie Slate?
2. Which do you think is the best method for shooting about 6/7 hours of footage a day and keep track of the sound in a double system to sync in post?

Ps - I know that's Plural Eyes out there. I've gave it a try with not so good results so I think is a NO Go for me.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.
 
since you're not jam syncing it with anything else and just using it to provide timecode into the recorder and using the app as a visual display/slate i don't think its a bad idea. it will definitely give you a great reference point and make it a lot easier to sync and find certain clips.

as far as plural eyes, not sure what you were doing but i've had great results with it. the main thing is sending a scratch track to camera. that really helps things out. i did a similar shoot like you are talking about. we shot all day. what i did was this: once we started shooting, i didn't cut sound until we were having a break. i think it was like a 2.5 hour sound clip, but cameras were cutting on and off during that time. on our break we would all offload cards into a master folder, "day1-offload1" or something like that. then once in post it made it super easy for plural eyes to line the clips up with the one large audio file, especially since i had scratch tracks going to each camera.
 
I like MovieSlate its fun but if you have the time to slate you also have the time to take a note so there is really no excuse your ending up in post with no idea of what goes to what.

However you already have a time reference. You in the wonderful world of file based filmmaking so IF you set the clock on your recorder and your camera to the correct time and date (and check it each day to make sure it didn't get reset somehow) both your sound and video will be time stamped with date and time that will be at least as accurate as the slate.
 
naavt said:
I know that's Plural Eyes out there. I've gave it a try with not so good results so I think is a NO Go for me.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.
Click to expand...

Everybody thinks plural eyes will do magic... it isn't... plural eyes can only sync "automaticaly" when it has something as a reference.
And plurar eyes is more used to sync when you have used different camera's and recorded sound on one...for example.

Plural eyes also needs to know which sounds goes to which image.

There's a raison why there's one guy only doing the clapboard...yes only that...realy only that.. no, he doesn't get coffee (well except for him). And yes it looks like it's THE most easy job on the set...
Well I can assure you...it isn't. It's not difficult no, but you have to be aware... And if he makes a mistake it gives consecuences in post.
 
Noiz2 said:
I like MovieSlate its fun but if you have the time to slate you also have the time to take a note so there is really no excuse your ending up in post with no idea of what goes to what.

However you already have a time reference. You in the wonderful world of file based filmmaking so IF you set the clock on your recorder and your camera to the correct time and date (and check it each day to make sure it didn't get reset somehow) both your sound and video will be time stamped with date and time that will be at least as accurate as the slate.
Click to expand...

That's reaaly a great tip Noiz2. Thanks a lot. I'll certainly will give it a try out.
 
I should add that you will want to get those dates into something more permanent an the creation date. The movie files may do that automatically since photos store it in metadata. The sound file you may need to check where the time stamp is. I know one recorder that puts it in the modified date rather than creation date. There are utilities that will copy time stamps so you could have both created and modified be the same. And you might want to add the time to the clip name.

The reason for all that is that if you do certain things to the file it will get a new creation date, and that blow the whole plan.
 
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