Editing two-camera shoots

stepfour wrote on 5/28/2002, 2:41 AM
Been working feverishly in Vegas for many hours. Have conqured, capturing, importing media, titles, scrolling credits and other stuff. Now I have come to my biggest challenge. I taped a wedding recently using two cameras and, of course, from different angles. I now have to work with two tracks and cutaway from one track and to the other at various intervals. To make things more fun, the audio is good on camera 1 on some of the ceremony and good on camera 2 during other parts, but not necessrily the same part where the video is more desirable. This means I won't be able to use one continuos audio tracks. The cutaways will involve both a/and v.

I am having a heck of a time getting the audio and video on the two long tracks synchronized. I can only see and hear one of the tracks at a time so I'm not sure how to get them sync'd. Unfortunately, the angles the cameras were at does not allow this to be done visually, with any degree of accuracy, and, again, I only know how to play one of the tracks, the top one. I have read he "Multicam in Vegas Video" tutorial on martyhedler.com backwards and forwards but it's a bit advanced for me.

Couple of questions that might get going with this:

Is there a way to make both audio tracks play at the same time so I can compare them and line them up?

How do I switch between the tracks. Is the track on top always the "live" one or can I play the bottom one too. I know if I take a chunk out of the top track then the bottom on is visisble or hearable during that part.

It's late now and I have to quit the editing session but any "plain talk" on working with multiple cameras is appreciated. Someday I'll be here answering questions. Meanwhile, I thank all those here who give so readily of their Vegas acumen.

Comments

seeker wrote on 5/28/2002, 6:15 AM
D.,

The tutorials in the 363-page PDF, and the corresponding tutorial files that come on the Vegas Video 3 CD and are also available on the FTP-porker site, start with audio syncing a studio-recorded sound track with a noisy on-camera sound track (so that the noisy on-camera audio can eventually be discarded), and as an aid to doing that you simultaneously play both sound tracks and shift the studio track until it "merges" with the noisy track.

You just might want to go through that tutorial. It is a fairly short tutorial. It is the one that corresponds to the file 01_voiceover.veg and the tutorial starts on page 45 of the Vegas 3 manual and continues through page 54. You will need the files talkinghead.avi and voiceover.wav for the tutorial.

You can expand the track scale enough so that you can recognize waveform shapes and visually match corresponding waveforms on the two sound tracks and you can also check the accuracy of that alignment by playing both audio tracks simultaneously. You should Lock the audio and video events of camera A to protect them from inadvertent edits and only Group the audio and video events of camera B, so that when you slide the audio track of camera B to sync it with the audio of camera A the video events move as well.

For a particular recognizable part of the ceremony (it could be a cough that was caught by both cams), on the Timeline drag to select that and click the Loop Playback button and click the Play button which will cause that time zone to repetitively play the two audio tracks during that time period. Then you can slowly drag the camcorder B audio track to bring it into sync with the cam A.

The bundled tutorials are actually quite good, and I highly recommend them. For your next wedding, you might want to consider some off-camera microphones, or clip-on mics or even cordless radio mics. I don't have anything that elaborate yet, but I do have an on-camera Sony zoom-shotgun foam covered mic that "zooms" right along with the zoom setting of the lens to vary its lobes to match the taking angle of the lens. I have used it at a couple of weddings, where I was merely a guest or family member with no special access, and the zoom shotgun has been good at rejecting side noises and focusing in on the minister and the bride and groom and the vocalist. But of course, off camera mics would be way better, and give me separate left and right stereo tracks. The minister and vocalist usually have auditorium sound system microphones, and you could mount yours along with them. Or you might be able to get the principals to wear your clip-on mics and radio transmitters. The transmitters are easily concealed. Of course, you will want to recover them before the bride and groom run off to the limo. But usually after the ceremony there is a planned still photo session where you would have an opportunity to retrieve your equipment. Some auditorium sound systems have a recording capability, and you might be able to use that as well. I am impressed that Vegas Video can use and edit all of the audio tracks that you can come up with. I seem to recall that some camcorders let you record additional sound tracks on a DV tape, but I am not certain of that. I do know that my Sony has an auxilliary microphone jack that I am not using yet.

-- Burton --
swarrine wrote on 5/28/2002, 8:34 AM
Hi-

First, you should be able to hear both audio tracks. For instance if you place music on one track and voice on another, you should be able to hear both.

In your case, possibly a little volume adjustment? Also, you should be able to visually match the audio waveforms for synch purposes.

As for video, use the track motion tool to downsize each stream, in other words, picture in picture both video tracks so you can see them at the same time while playing your timeline. You can then either assemble on to a third track or to one of your original tracks.

Suggestion: Start small and slow and experiment with some short clips until you find the methodology that works for you. Then move on to your large project.
stepfour wrote on 5/28/2002, 9:11 AM
Thanks for the info seeker and swarrine. Sadly I had a fully functional Shure VHF radio lavalier mic at the ceremony but that was a last minute change I made and the groom refused to wear it. It was not an idea I had introduced him to beforehand. I was not expecting to need it until I saw the weather forcast for that day (windy). I leased the Shure mic kit early that morning and introduced it to the groom about an hour before the ceremony. Anyway, no go. He was too nervous about all the preparations he had made gettng his tux to look just right and I think being wired just is not him. Anyway, that's spilled milk now.

I used a mono Sennheiser MKE300 directional zoom mic on the handheld camera and the unmanned camera had a Sony stereo mic on it. Actually, most of the audio is quite decent but there are times when the sensitivity of the Sennheiser mic picked up a lot of wind and environmental noises such a large a/c unit on the roof of the country clubhouse, etc. At the rehearsal, this same mic checked out perfectly. It was picking up every whisper. That was a day with virtually no wind, and that a/c unit was not running, plus the big crowd wasn't there. I truly did not plan well on that one. I Should have told the groom days in advance that on day of, I would need to mic him up. Anyway, he made the choice to not be and I did warn him that audio could be a problem. My efforts to position the very best of the audio for this edit is because I care about what my name goes on.

I've been through that tutorial but I am still having trouble applying those concepts to my situation. I can see some correlation but getting the light bulb in my thick skull to really come on is another story. With Vegas, it's the little things that make all the difference. Understanding how to select things and what all the little icons and markers mean and do. Now that I am deep into this project I do fear fouling up all that I have done so far.

Is there a page in the manual that sort of goes over in any detail how to select and play multiple tracks of audio and video at the same time? I think that's what Marty Hedlers tutorial is about but I still don't have a solid enough Vegas foundation to jump into that and apply those ideas. Right now I'm going to go back through the voiceover.veg tutorial again. Maybe something will click. Thanks again for the response.
stepfour wrote on 5/28/2002, 11:29 AM
Just going back through the voiceover tutorial on editing audio. I'm stuck on the part that says select a section of the audio on the voiceover event and then delete it. I think I'm selecting the portion okay but when I hit delete, the whole event gets deleted. Did I miss a click or something? The original event and audio are okay because I locked them together as instructed. Is there a difference between a Loop Region and the time selection I need to delete? Maybe I don't have the right kind of time selection made.
Tyler.Durden wrote on 5/28/2002, 1:39 PM
Hi 2Road,

Here's a quick way to delete yer audio: split the audio clip just before and just after the segment you want to delete, click on the segment you defined with the splits and hit delete.

To sync-up the audio, it might help to pan the audio on one track to the left and the other track to the right... just nudge (numpad4, numpad6) the new audio closer in time until there is no echo quality. You can do it while looping a small area that has easily recognizable sounds. That should get you "bang-on". If not, They should be close enough to see the waveforms and you can line 'em up that way. (You can increase audio track height for a better view.) When finished, return the panning to center.

I apologize for not bringing out a synching tutorial as stated in the multicam-tut. Will move forward there soon, I hope.

HTH, MPH

swarrine wrote on 5/28/2002, 2:39 PM
"...how to select and play multiple tracks of audio and video at the same time?"

Assuming you have multiple tracks of audio opened and audio clips on each track that overlap (one over the other) they both should play where ever the cursor is.

Not sure why you can not get multiple audio tracks to play, you should be able to.
stepfour wrote on 5/28/2002, 2:41 PM
Hi Marty. Hey, don't apologize. I'm sure those tutorials and screenshots and narratives take a lot of time. We are lucky to have the ones you and others have put together. Actually, I looked at those before I purchsed Vegas 3 and I knew there had to be something pretty special about a product for individual users to take time to document its usage with tutorials. Someday that multicam trick on your tutorial is going to save me a lot of time.

Before I read your post, I had just discovered the numeric keypad 4 and 6 in my keyboard commands cheat sheet. That ability to nudge the audio event proved crucial in lining up audio with video. As for editing between the video and audio timelines, I think I will use the split, select and delete methods as you suggest. It's precise and feels like editors I have worked with in the past. I can't get comfortable with highlight and delete. I still don't understand what's happening when selecting. Sometimes there is a box formed but sometimes that box is not there but the yellow markers are at the top. Sometimes hitting the delete key deletes the whole track, other times hitting delete does nothing. I have not gotten the hang of that part.

Thank again for helping me along on this.
seeker wrote on 5/29/2002, 3:45 AM
D.,

Too bad the groom didn't go for the radio mic. At least you have 2-camera coverage with good on-camera mics. And Vegas Video is the best video editor for dealing with sound problems. Do you plan to add a "music bed"?

-- Burton --
Caruso wrote on 5/29/2002, 6:51 PM
I assume from your post that the unmanned cam ran continuously so that, good or bad, you have at least one uninterrupted soundtrack (with accompanying video). I would use that sound track as a master, then, align the audio from the other cam making certain that its accompanying video remains in sync.

If both cams are continuous throughout the entire ceremony, one really good alignment should do.

If either or both are not continuous, you'll need to align at any breaks in continuity. I like to get all footage from both cams aligned before I even attempt to do any editing.

Once satisfied with the alignment, you can add a "destination" track (video and audio or just video if you have one good audio track that can serve as a master).

Use the split function to isolate those areas of your footage you want to include in your final print, highlight them, copy then paste into your "destination" track.

In this way, if your original audio alignment between cams was good, maintaining it as you cut and paste is a no brainer.

There are other ways to go about this, but, the method described above has proven to work best for me.

I shoot with three or four cams, always pre-designating one as the "audio" cam with an aim to capture at least one "pristine" version of the audio. I use two external mono mikes (one per channel) on this cam and, generally, will separate its audio and tweak it in an audio editing ap (Soundforge or Wavelab), then, either import it as a new element to the timeline, or, if I used the "Open in audio editor" function of VV, simply move back to my project.

My suggestion would be for you to designate one of the two audio tracks as a master, even if the audio is not ideal throughout. In this way, at least, you will have established a single point of reference to which you can sync the other cam.

Don't know if what I've stated makes any sense, but, my intention was to help.

Good luck.

Report back and tell us how it goes for you.

Caruso