Syncing comped playlists to video

[welchaudio]

Hi,

So, the audio and video department of our facility has now embarked on (editing wise) a fairly challenging production. Our boss wants to shoot an in-studio video of a vocalist tracking, and then by comping, take the best elements of each take and turn it into one seamless audio file and sync that file to the recorded video. Obviously the audio side of that is very easy as the functionality is built into Pro Tools, but the challenge comes in syncing the final comp to video. We tend to do very meticulous comping, for example we might take a single word from take 20 and then take the next word from take 6, taking the absolute best elements of each. In this scenario finding the video that matches the audio would be an absolute nightmare for the editor, but this is the way our boss wants the project done so we don't have much choice.

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience working on similar projects and what can be done to simplify the process for our video editors, or how we could possibly sync the timecode for the audio and the video. We normally use Logic but are willing to use Pro Tools if it can make our lives easier.

[joachim]

Were the takes created with the talent performing to a click track ?
Then syncing all 20 video+audio tracks should not be too much of a a problem, by syncing to the waveforms, with minor discrepancies to be smoothed out.

Is this specifically Mac-related ? If not, in "Post-Surround-Video" you might get more help.

[welchaudio]

Hi, my bad, I didn't see the post section. If a moderator sees this, please feel free to delete this thread as I made another one over there.

[welchaudio]

So, the audio and video department of our facility has now embarked on (editing wise) a fairly challenging production. Our boss wants to shoot an in-studio video of a vocalist tracking, and then by comping, take the best elements of each take and turn it into one seamless audio file and sync that file to the recorded video. Obviously the audio side of that is very easy as the functionality is built into Pro Tools, but the challenge comes in syncing the final comp to video. My boss wants me to do very meticulous comping, for example we might take a single word from take 20 and then take the next word from take 6, taking the absolute best elements of each. In this scenario finding the video that matches the audio would be an absolute nightmare for the editor, but this is the way our boss wants the project done so we don't have much choice.

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience working on similar projects and what can be done to simplify the process for our video editors, or how we could possibly sync the timecode for the audio and the video. We normally use Logic but are willing to use Pro Tools if it can somehow make our lives easier.

[joachim]

And the click-track ?

[mfranken]

I haven't worked on a project like this as such but with the work I have done where a video edit follows an audio edit in PT I'd suggest the following:

- Record each take to a unique TC location and use this TC in PT and video. This way you'll be able to sync your video to the audio take you select.

- You might make PT the TC master and create multiple copies of your playback elements on the timeline starting at say 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 20 min... (depending on the length of the song/production)

- Record each take down the timeline and name each vocal recording (possibly after all takes are recorded) as something useful with a take number to help the picture editor ID which take is used

- Once recording is complete, re-arrange the vocal recordings so they all start at the some point in the timeline on different tracks. I haven't used the comping feature in PT and assume you need all takes on different playlists, so not sure if it's possible to move clips from different tracks onto different playlists of a single track. Maybe someone else can help you on this, or you could comp by selecting from multiple mono tracks.

- If you want the video and audio to stay in exact sync you would need to make all edits to the frame edge of the frame rate that the video is running at. i.e comp in 1 frame grid mode and don't add any fades or crossfades at this stage

- Once you have created a comp version on a single track you can load your PT session into EdiLoad to extract the edit data of the comp track. EdiLoad can then export an EDL that your picture editors can use to automatically conform their pictures.

- Once the EDL is created you can massage the edits in PT using slip mode and add crossfades as required to make the edits perfect.

Hope that helps,

Mark

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by welchaudio

If a moderator sees this, please feel free to delete this thread as I made another one over there.

merged.

[joachim]

Originally Posted by welchaudio

...take a single word from take 20 and then take the next word from take 6, ...

Originally Posted by mfranken

... a video edit follows an audio edit in PT ...

Wouldn't that create a lot of irritating jump cuts; is that intended ?

[EGS]

Perhaps this would help?
http://www.synchroarts.com/products/...e-pro/overview