Making 3-to-5 second cuts in Vegas... tips?

ken c wrote on 7/6/2005, 5:43 PM
I just watched a sensational seminar DVD and one of the things that made it so interesting was the fact that they had a 4-5 camera shoot and made cuts about every 3 to 5 seconds ...(I counted...)..

Now how would you do this in Vegas, eg it seems that even w/SMPTE-synced footage, making cuts every few seconds, for an hour long presentation, would be an editing mega-job...

any insights from you editors, re how to make multicam quick edits like that? even w/a script, sounds like a very tedious job, right?

eg 45 minutes with clips every 3- to 5-seconds (eg far away camera, cut to closeup, cut to other closeup cam, cut to audience shot, back again etc).. would be hundreds of cuts... how do they do that without going bonkers in the editing bay - am I missing something that semi-automates that process?


ken

Comments

epirb wrote on 7/6/2005, 5:50 PM
Keep your eye out for the Next generaton Ultimatte S.
Spot previewed at the Vasst Seminar.
In a nutshell, place your cams on separate tracks, a switch back and forth while playing the timeline, he even had it set up with choices from cuts and disolves.
then he just went along and clicked.......cut here......cut agian....disolve here....etc alll while watching the cams split screen in the preview window and real time. cool as hell. Now all I need is 3 more FX1's .
doing that way would be much better than a script that automaticly cuts a say 3 seconds,....that would seem too mechanical and dry too me besides you'd be cutting in mid word and stuff at times.
PeterWright wrote on 7/6/2005, 5:57 PM
Excalibur makes this a pleasure.

It has wizards to help sync the tracks, then makes a multi PIP showing each camera with number. It's just a matter of going through, hitting M for marker and adding the number of the camera to cut or dissolve to. Once you've been through, click a single button and Excalibur assembles your finished program.

I expect the new UltimatteS will do a similar job - currently works for 2 cameras.
B.Verlik wrote on 7/6/2005, 6:00 PM
2 camera's is easy. Add a 3rd and my head starts spinning.
While you could achieve this in Vegas, there's probably a good chance that what you saw was done LIVE with a real Video switcher and a person or two running the board and switching on the fly. Thank the MTV generation for getting bored with anything longer than 5 seconds.
I can't think of anyway that this would be easy within Vegas, even with the tools at VASST. Even two cameras, is very boring to edit. But at least it's simple.
An awful lot of time consuming composite level "Points" in your future.
I'm all ears too.
GlennChan wrote on 7/6/2005, 7:33 PM
Various ways to do things in Vegas:
A- Plug-ins like excalibur

B- If you have a control surface (like the Mackie one), you could use the automation buttons to do the cutting for you.

C- There's a multiple-angle script that'll take layers and add them together as takes. Or you can do this manually, which isn't hard either.

Once you have a clip with all the angles synced, you can play and hit s where you want an edit. Hit t to change the active take... that way you can update to whatever angle you want.

In the upper layers, set things up so you have all the angles picture-in-picture. You probably want to render this out beforehand. The nice thing about Vegas is that it switches resolution easily, so you can have the "video wall" of camera angles in whatever resolution and aspect ratio you want.

Put the master clip with the multiple takes in the bottom. Solo that track if you want to see what your thing looks like.

*Haven't tried that, but it should work.
Michael L wrote on 7/6/2005, 7:42 PM
Excalibur.

I have used this for up to a 4 camera edit - performed flawlessly and is great to work with. The recent upgrade gave it the ability to do the cuts on the fly and have it keep running the video.

Ultimate S is also a great product. I use it for a photo montage and it was wonderful.

I prefer Excalibur because you can use more than 2 cameras and I have been using it for about 2 years.

GOod luck with your edit
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 7/6/2005, 10:30 PM
Ken - just make sure and WAIT to see the New Ultimate S.

It's a matter of picking your preferred tool - but they should both probably have fully functional trails once the new Ultimate S is out - it sounds very good.

Dave