Multi-cam Shoot, No Time-code

[Guest]

Hi guys, I am about to embark on a tour shooting underground culture from Virginia to Boston. We'll be shooting with myriad of small consumer cameras and dslr's that will be inter-cut. The tour is 18 days and we will have mountains of footage by the end.

Does anybody have some good tips and ideas for staying on top of all of the footage, and finding ways for making audio sync later easier?

Thanks


(I'm posting here because dslr's are the only camera category here that doesn't use time-code)

 

[M. Gilden]

Plural Eyes, as long as there is any audio at all, does a pretty good job of syncing up clips automagically.

 

[yoclay]

Couple of things. Yes, of course pluraleyes is a must.
However, be aware that when you are in extremely saturated sound environments like a very busy street, your camera audio (used as a witness track) may not record enough peaks to do a good sync. The other situation is where one of the cameras is so far away that it is an issue for the same reason. Even if you don't own a slate, definitely ask the actor or someone else to clap their hands. The best place to do this is just in front of their eyes because of the multiple angles you may have. The resulting peaks in the audio will help Pluraleyes to do it's job.

The other thing to know is that a lot of people have been finding that the 5D is out of sync by about 2 frames between the audio and video tracks when shooting 24/25p. You may need to compensate globally in post for this. It is a good idea to check the sync on a real grading video monitor (HD_SDI) to make sure that any sync delays are not coming from your computer rather than the footage itself.

Good luck.

 

[Guest]

Thanks guys, that is def a great start to get me going. I've not used this plural eyes yet. Looking forward to trying it out, a constituent says he has it.

I will try to update the foray into non-sync world. It's going to be crazy as some of the other guys are not disciplined camera men.