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talented_member1587
talented_member1587
Known Participant
August 20, 2021
Question

Confusing Glitch w/ Multicam Sequence for Audio/Video Syncing

  • August 20, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 193 views

I'm having an issue when using Multicam to sync a day's worth of footage with Zoom H6 audio files (for 1 cam episodic, needing a 1-for-1 video/audio sync). It was working with footage/audio from another DP, but when I tried to sync my own (4K .mov with H6 .wav) files, it did this: I have a bin of a series of takes (along with the matching audio .wav clips) and run Multicam Sequence, but PP is putting every take into one Multicam sequence with just one sound file, instead of separating them out 1-for-1? I can't figure out why it worked the way it was supposed to with footage submittted from the other DP (sync'd a bin with about 40+ takes with the correct 40+ audio files). But the ones we shot using our H6 for sound, are taking all of one cam angle (i.e. CU's take 1-10), and making it one Multicam sequence with only 1 linked audio file (usually from take 1). This is giving us fairly useless sequence, because every take of an actor is slightly different, and I need to cut this episodic with the best moments, not edit it like a live shoot that cuts between different cameras.

 

Some spec's: Our H6 was set to record as "Tr1" and each sound file is a 96000 Hz 24 bit. I noticed the other DP's sound is 44100 Hz 16 bit. And not that this should matter, but her sound files are lower case .wav, but our zoom files are upper case .WAV? I questioned whether the scratch audio from the cam was not loud enough for PP to do a waveform match, but when I manually sync in the timeline, PP audio sync works perfectly. So in the timeline, it can manage to match up the waveforms accurately. But I have a week's worth of heavy shooting with hundreds of takes that need to be sync'd so I can get to editing, and I'll never get this project moving forward if I have to manually sync each one in the timeline. Especially since none of the zoom files have any identifying info in their names. So it's grasping at straws to try to find the matches.

 

The only other thing I can think of is that all of our video files were custom named prior to being pulled into PP, so that the various editors who work on it know what that take actually is (i.e. a character named John when shooting a CU for Ep 1, Sc 2 would be named something like Ep1_Sc2_John_Cu_1; CU_2; CU_3, etc. But that naming was all done on the OS level prior to ingesting into PP. The sound files are all labeled with the original Zoom H6 naming scheme (ZOOM0001_Tr1.WAV, etc.). Whereas the other DP submitted a full day of shooting with MP4's sequentially numbered by her cam (1-80) with the audio files named in a similar way. But even in that instance, there are some false takes, so it's not like her Video take 42 matches up with Audio take 42, and PP still managed to get it right. And our files are mov's, and hers were MP4's. I know these shouldn't be factors in the problem - but I'm grasping at straws here.

 

I'm new to using Multicam in place of merge, and am all for it. I've watched literally every YT tutorial out there and read every comment, but my issue doesn't seem to be happening to anyone else? I'm ripping my hair out on this one - I can't seem to find anyone online that has had even a remotely similar occurrence, and I spent 12-14 hours yesterday scouring the internet and youtube comments looking for SOME mention of something similar that would give me some answers. But every troubleshooting article and video is talking about why multiple videos won't merge together in the Multicam Sequence, with nobody talking about the issues of a 1 cam for 1 audio file necessity creating a Frankenstein sequence that is zero use. Thanks all in advance!

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1 reply

talented_member1587
talented_member1587Author
Known Participant
August 21, 2021

So I think I’ve settled on a solution (albeit perhaps not the most efficient one, but a necessary one to get the edit moving forward): I’ve separated every camera angle for every character out to separate bins within each scene bin, so that the Multicam sequence processing can be a bit easier to do manually. I found a pattern to how the audio files were recorded and that helped to move them to the right bins. Some of the batch syncing with Multicam actually goes well. Some, inexplicably, continued to make a mess. In those cases, I did individual Multicam sequences for each separate take in the problematic bin. Then I got fairly quick over the last few hours of doing an initial batch process run to see if the bin contents would cooperate, and when it didn’t, it was a quick return to the original files again and I did each individually. I’m sure there’s user error here, inevitably. But without a clear answer, at least all of the syncing is now done and I can dig into the actual edit tomorrow morning. Thanks everyone for the help. If anyone has seen this problem before, or found a solution, then I’d love to hear other takes on this, as I'm sure it won't be the last time I encounter problematic sync's. Thanks!

M
Michael Grenadier
Legend
August 21, 2021

I've got pluraleyes 

https://www.maxon.net/en/red-giant-complete/pluraleyes

I had a job where the idiot production people were shooting with an elderly dslr that would only record a few minutes and they let the audio recorder run for an hour over multiple takes.  not a pretty picture.  when I asked them to slate the responded they were documentary filmmakers and didn't need to and that I should buy pluraleyes.  luckily the producer paid for it...

I've found that sometimes pluraleyes works better than premiere and sometimes premiere works better than pluraleyes.  I think there's a free trial, so might be worth a shot.

talented_member1587
talented_member1587Author
Known Participant
August 25, 2021

As an actor turned director/producer (who does both scripted and docs), I will tell you that anyone not willing to slate is beyond disrespectful and unprofessional. Most everyone I've worked with professionally not only respect the entire process (including slating!), but for those of us who have been in an editing bay - or even done looping as an actor - we have MASSIVE respect for the time intensive and often thankless work of assistant editors. I hope your work brings you into more contact with filmmakers who are willing to take those couple extra minutes and do things right, so that others in the pipeline won't be forced to quadruple their workloads because of laziness. Sorry you had to face that. Seriously - SLATING?!?! My God, that's like filmmaking 101. Even if they don't care about other people's workloads, you'd think that any filmmaker worth their salt would be selfish enough about their projects that they wouldn't want to risk losing great takes or having bad audio sync's, all of which are supported by a good clean slate. Wow. I'm kind of floored. 

 

But I do think that perhaps a portion of the issue I was dealing with on my particular shoot assets, was that we were doing a bit of a Covid run-and-gun on this one, with actors having to do their own tech, as it was too early in the pandemic for risking anyone being in person as things were shot. Our crew was only present via Zoom as consultants, with the actual running of the equipment done by the actors and whoever lived in their households that was willing to lend a hand. So I think that meant we got a handful of audio clips that were running a bit longer than the video. But there were even some sync's that had audio/video clips that were fairly close in length, and should have been able to batch sync, and still had issues. 

 

One thing I AM sure of, is that this was a case of user error. I just couldn't figure out where the errors were that were causing the issue. Thankfully we got it all sync'd in the end. And thankfully with vaccines and masking, we won't have to (hopefully!) resort to our amazing crews being only present via Zoom!

 

Best of luck to you and thanks for the answer!

 

P.S. Wouldn't SLATE?!?! I'm going to be stuck on that ridiculousness for a VERY long time! 

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