PT9, Digi002 and Synching to live video shoot

[Nick Melander]

All

I provided sound reinforcement for a small summer concert in central Indiana last weekend and the business owner that hosted the concert had a video production company show up and shoot the beginnings of what will be a music video that he will use on his web site and for other marketing purposes. No problem...I gave them a wireless monitor out feed to one of their cameras on location and we they shot the video. Three fine lookin young ladys climbed up on the stage and sang a up tempo jingle written specifically for this client. The band that was on stage at the time obviously had rehearsed the "jingle" and added their part nicely in the background.

The owner was impressed enough by my live sound production that he offered up the opportunity to record the "girls" at my studio as well as the band that played the backing music. Of course I said..."absolutley...Thx"

Here's the issue......they now tell me they want to bring the (2) cameras to the studio to record the sessions of both the girls as well as the band. I have had a discussion with one of the guys since our encounter last week and we touched on the synching process (which I know little to nothing about!). This particular guy was not very knowledgable about the requirements as well. I'm hoping the lead guy will be that I meet with next Monday.

My question is what should I be prepared to provide to the camera crew(s) on my side during the live recording as well as post production that will optimize the video/audio synch process? Especially during the live studio recording process. In this case the video producer is going to be responsible for the final editing and production of the final product (they use FinalCut Pro)...but I would "assume" that I will be expected to edit, comp and master the audio portion for them and supply.

Thx in advance for you suggestions, insight and help!

Nick

[Park Seward]

You can do it the "easy" way or the "right" way.

The easy way is to do a clap stick or hand clap visible on camera and heard on the sound track. You then manually sync the tracks together. Be sure to ID the tracks visually and aurally. (take 21, etc). You must slate the cameras each time they start a take.

It can get real confusing if you use take 5 of the bass, take 27 of the guitar, take 19 of the keys, etc. Notes will be very important.

The right way is to provide SMPTE timecode from the Pro Tools system to send to each camera. Also, you need a black burst generator to lock the PT and cameras so they don't drift. Timecode is not enough in itself since the timecode phase will drift. As you may know, timecode changes at the start of a frame. With no reference, the timecode will drift.

This is assuming that the cameras can take black burst and external SMPTE timecode. Some prosumer cameras cannot. If not, see "easy" above.

Someone need to make a note as to which take is used in the final recording. If you take 50 takes of the guitar solo, which one was used in the final song? Or to make matters worse, which parts of the 50 takes were used. Of corse you can use cutaways to hide any obvious sync issues.

If you are recording everyone at the same time, it gets easier. You will have some drift if you don't have a black reference to everyone but a short song may hold together fine. Just remember you may need to nudge video a little.

Good luck.

[Fabdickson]

Originally Posted by Park Seward

You can do it the "easy" way or the "right" way.

The easy way is to do a clap stick or hand clap visible on camera and heard on the sound track. You then manually sync the tracks together. Be sure to ID the tracks visually and aurally. (take 21, etc). You must slate the cameras each time they start a take.

It can get real confusing if you use take 5 of the bass, take 27 of the guitar, take 19 of the keys, etc. Notes will be very important.

The right way is to provide SMPTE timecode from the Pro Tools system to send to each camera. Also, you need a black burst generator to lock the PT and cameras so they don't drift. Timecode is not enough in itself since the timecode phase will drift. As you may know, timecode changes at the start of a frame. With no reference, the timecode will drift.

This is assuming that the cameras can take black burst and external SMPTE timecode. Some prosumer cameras cannot. If not, see "easy" above.

Someone need to make a note as to which take is used in the final recording. If you take 50 takes of the guitar solo, which one was used in the final song? Or to make matters worse, which parts of the 50 takes were used. Of corse you can use cutaways to hide any obvious sync issues.

If you are recording everyone at the same time, it gets easier. You will have some drift if you don't have a black reference to everyone but a short song may hold together fine. Just remember you may need to nudge video a little.

Good luck.

What He Said, But For The Sake Of Editing, Do An "End Slate" too..... It Can Be Anything, As Long As There's A Video Cue And Simultaneous Audio Cue That's Been Recorded..... The Clap Stick Is Great Because Of The White Chevrons That You Can See "Join" In The Frame When "Clapped"..... Very Easy To Get The Audio Aligned....

[Park Seward]

Another way to sync everything together (if the cameras have reference input and TC) is to use Lockit boxes.

http://www.ambient.de/produkte/timecode/timecode_e.html

With a box for each camera and one for Pro Tools, you can feed video reference to the cameras and word clock to the PT system and TC to everyone and everything stays in sync.

I used the Lockit boxes for this Lee Ritenour shoot:

http://videopark.com/leedvd.htm