multi-cam edit workflow

[Bruce Watson]

Newbie doing multi-cam edits. What's the "normal" workflow in CS5? Or, what's considered to be "industry best practice" for working with multiple cameras?

For example, one way to do this would be to create a source sequence, clean up the footage (sync the video / audio feeds, trim the ends off, cut out the extraneous stuff and mistakes, etc.), then create a multi-cam sequence, turn on multi-cam editing on that sequence, then drag the cleaned up source sequence into the multi-cam sequence, and do the fine tuning and video switching there. I'm pretty sure this will work, but is it the "normal" way to do this?

Another question is... can I have multiple multi-cam sequences in a project? The reason for this is to break down an interview to isolate certain questions/answers for use on a website. I'd want to include parts of the interview in one sequence and exclude those from others. Will this work, or will my edits in one sequence contaminate other sequences (that is, will they ripple back up to the source sequence)? The reason I'm asking is it would be convenient to keep all the various bits contained within a single PPro project.

 

[Joshbalti]

The normal workflow is to start a new sequence and layer and sync all your cameras and audio onto separate tracks, and with no cuts, (apart from trimming the ends if you need to) then nest this unedited sequence in your main timeline and open up the multicam editor and do your switching. after you do this you can fine tune your cuts on the timeline using the roll tool without having to go back into the multicam editor.

If you want to put multiple multicam edits in the project, you need to nest the individual multicam sequences twice; ie have a sequence for the synced tracks, then nest that in a seperate sequence to do the edit, and finaly nest that final cut in your main timeline. you can do this as many times you want, the only downside is that you end up with a lot of sequences in your bin, and it can get really messy if you don't keep on top of the organization and file naming formats.