Music Video - Sound Sync

[escozooz]

I'm sorry if this has been posted before but I couldn't find it.

I just finished production for a pretty lo-budget music video. We shot on a green screen and at one location. For sound all we had a was a big boombox that we cued up to the right time and then played.

Later in post I am matching up the audio in the video with the audio in the master track. I am realizing that I cannot perfectly match the two. They come very close but after about 2 mins the sync is noticibly off.

What is the best way to match the two?

1) In Premiere/Audition with the audio on the tape for this video.

2) A better way (for future) in production to mark the songs time code in the frame.

I have seen digi-slates with time code on them but thats too far out of my budget range.

I have thought about having the stereos time display in the shot when the sound is first played.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks.

 

[thisiswells]

There are a lot of "pro" ways of doing this with timecode slates and wireless this and that... $$. There are ways to do it, and yes I know what they are and how to do it, but they're all expensive. Additionally, the latest one I worked on (shot on HD with a VariCam) used a simple boombox like yours for playback. More often nowadays with the advent of videotape aquisition, that's the "pro" way of doing it. Things are much different with film when you really do need a wireless TC-synced slate...

One "indie" way of doing this is to cut the song on a timeline with a TC burn-in and run playback from an el-cheapo miniDV camera and use the camera's LCD screen as the "TC slate" and do your edits based on that. Never tried it, though. Seems like a good idea, in theory.

Truth is for music videos you never have a clip that's long enough to be noticeably out of sync.
Hope this helps!! Good luck.

 

[Rosestar]

What I've done for low budget videos is to take the bands song, from CD, and copy the CD file of the song into my audio editor (I use Peak). In the audio editor, I put a sync reference on the head and the tale of the song. What I do is put two one second pieces of 1000K tone set at -12dbs at the front of the song and at the end. I put one second of silence between them and start the song three seconds after the second tone. I then burn this song to CD. When shooting, I play back this CD through what ever source is available (I've used boom boxes successfully) and have the band perform to the song, while recording audio with a camera mounted mic. I cover the band from ever angle singing the entire song, so to get all the sync references in every shot (of course, I get b-roll shots that are are audio neutral so I have stuff to cut to without worrying about sync).

In post, I lay the audio track, with sync tones front and back, into the timeline. I trim the audio to the very first frame of the first one second sync tone. I go through my footage and chose the shots I want,(I start at the begining of the song to keep things simple). Once I have a shot I want, I trim the shot(with camera audio recording the song from the CD with sync tones) to the very first frame of the first sync tone (just like the audio in the timeline). When you have done this, the time on the shot to be used and the time on the audio in the timeline should match. For example, 1minute, 10 seconds, 12 frames on the time line will match, 1 minute, 10 seconds, 12 frames in on your trimmed clip. You can check the sync on the clip by laying it into the timeline, with the camera audio onto two tracks below the CD audio and play the clip. If the clip is out of sync, there will be an echo. The more pronounce the echo, the more the sync is off. From there edit your video.

To make this no-budget sync work there are few consideratons. First, when shootiing, make sure that the playback audio is very close to the camera so that you do not have a problem with delay due to distance. When you burn the sync CD, use this copy of the song for your editing, not the one saved from your audio editor. I know, it should be that same, but you never know. Also, what may seem like sync problems, may be performance problems. Performing to a song is a skill that may take the band a few times to get right. Shoot lots of coverage. When editing, make sure that you are meticulous about trimming all the audio and clips to the same exact frames. I've done this several times and have not had a problem with sync. I know that my explanation my make this seem more complicated that it is, sorry.

Your situation with the video you have already shot is a tough one. If you are losing sync, you have to cut to something and shuttle the clips back and forth to get sync back. Check your footage and find stuff that is audio neutral and can be cut in here. Since you did green screen, I assume that you are shooting or creating background plates. Use this stuff to cover the loss of sync.

Good luck.