Thanks Cheno!
One other thing if i May. I see a 1280 x 720 30p" option. I shoot in 60i, will
this be an issue? Also by theory will i be able to zoom down to 720 x 480
without loss of video quality since that will be the the res on final render?

I recently got a 60i camera, but had to give it up because we do everything else in 720p - and I could not convert i.e. shaky clips in a satisfying way. So you have to try it in your own environment before shooting for real.

As to the multicam-look you know that you can keep the sound of your original clips playing and then mix muted video - i.e. taken off line or on other occations into it.

You lost me rits! But truly thankful for your feed back! I can shoot in 24p or 30p, but choose to shoot in 60i more less because of motion issues. But that topic is not the subject here. My concern is when i take said clip and zoom in from (1440 x 1080 on a 1280 x 720 time line down to 720 x 480) will the image look right.

Typing is not my strong point so there's a good chance i'm not making myself real clear here. See if this makes more sense. I will be shooting my project wide angle. In post i will cut the project every 5 to 10 seconds, every other cut i want zoom in to provide a tight shot. thus providing a multi cam look. Again shooting 1440 x 1080. 60i.

If you're assuming you can go from 1080 to 480 vertical res and not see the image go soft you could be being very optimistic. The number of pixels provides the upper limit of image resolution. The lower limit could be anything. The quality of the lens, design of the sensor, focussing, noise all work against you. You need to eyeball what you're doing, not think there's some magic number that'll keep you safe, sorry.

I'd also suggest you exercise some caution with your idea, constant jump 'zooms' might get tiring quickly. I've done it a bit to make 2 cameras seem like 3, just to break things up. I'd really suggest having another camera shooting from another angle. This gives you much more creative possibilities because you can break the sequence of in/out/in/out.

Bob.

This helped me tremendously when I first went to HD and it will give you the option to pan around and see what exactly will be in your shot.

Here is the link.

j razz

Not assuming anything here Bob. Just want to know if it will work. Of course using 2 cameras would be ideal, we don't have that option for this shoot, ( looks as if my words where chosen poorly ). There will not be any actual zoom. Hoping to make every other clip smallest size possible without distorting. tight, wide ,tight wide.etc..
I know your trying to be helpful Bob, so thank you!

I have found depending on what you are shooting it can work quite well, A well lit interview or shooting anything fairly close to the camera with good light and not much movement . zooming in pan and crop and rotate a little and it can look like another cam without getting too soft..

I've tried doing this, going from 1080p down to 720p, but the close-ups of stand-up talking torso shots were too soft for my tastes.

However, it occurred to me that I could shoot against a green screen and tilt the camera so that I could get more of the torso without zooming out - the diagonal dimensions of the 16:9 frame being greater than the vertical dimension, while still having enough width to allow for some arm movement. Then key out the green screen, re-orient the image using pan/crop in order to restore vertical torso orientation, and zoom in with pan/crop tool as desired to simulate tight second camera.

I've just spent a couple of days hanging and ironing a green-screen fabric and getting the illumination right. It was tough, for I have rather cramped quarters and can't get talent more than about 6' from green screen; but by placing red gels on the side of the four green-screen lights so that some of their light would back-light talent's hair with a contrasting color (orange gels probably would have given better results, for orange is complement to green; but I didn't have orange), I have been able to get a good key using New Blue's keyer (Cinegob's keyer worked almost as well, but when I created the output file with alpha channel, an tiny but annoying dark fringe around the talent damaged the key when brought back into Vegas).

I now have a ball joint on the remote-controlled camera mount so that I can tilt, but I haven't yet tested to see if I can get close enough to simulate 2nd tight camera without too much loss of resolution with this technique; we shall see.

I have 3 HD cameras that I could use to set up multi-cam procedures, but with 3 times as many files to manage and synchronize, I'd like to save the hassle - and disk space. Moreover, by keying out the background, I have many more degrees of freedom regarding where to place the image, background choices, etc. Editing creativity then can be unleashed.

"There will not be any actual zoom"

That's why I said "jump zoom".

It's not even that as you're not changing focal length of the lens.

Let me talk about the subtle things that define our craft. You can fit a subject into the frame in two ways. move the camera back or decrease the focal length of the lens. The outcome is different, the two methods give a different feel to the shot as the perspective is different. A shot that's croped in post does not look the same as the exact same shot where the focal length of the lens was changed (zoomed in). It also looks different if you moved the camera closer to the subject. If you showed this happening in the final edit then you see the difference between a "zoom" and a "push".

Bob.

I just finished editing a 2 minute piece that's a pitch for a series.
Single camera. Good director, good producer, cameraman not used to studio shoots, talent only done radio. All came out OK though. 80mins of tape to get 2 mins. Shoot everything wide. Shoot lead talent doing the same MCU and ECU. Repeat for fall guy. Get closeups of some product details etc.This was shot in a very small space.
Director was 95% on the ball getting talent to repeat lines and actions exactly the same. Took around 1 day to shoot and a day to edit. Would have helped if I had the script and the shots were logged, they needed an extra body on the shoot.

Bob.

It would probably be better if you learned to shoot with one camera AND achieve a variety of looks.

Even if you have to capture one event unbroken, you can reframe the image every so often by panning the camera, adjusting the zoom, moving the camera location etc.

Then you need to shoot a lot of coverage for cutaway shots, which it sounds like you are going to do. You can cover up a hasty zoom or camera move in editing, especially if you keep the sound from the wide shot while showing a cutaway.

Passive Camera work is going to look like passive camera work. You want to get creative with the camera, but cut out all the fuzzing and fidgeting and zooming, unless you are deliberate in using it.

I'm guessing there's tons of things you've seen that look multicamera, but are not.