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Irvsax
Known Participant
January 12, 2017
Question

Workflow with multiple camera matching and prem pro/speedgrade

  • January 12, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 483 views

I am new to the serious end of Prem Pro and video editing. I know my basic way around but i am about to embark on shooting some promo videos for bands.

At the moment my gear contains a DSLR, GOPROS and Panasonic HD Cameras. I expect each video will have 10-12 shots to edit.

What i am trying to get my head around is the best way to match the cameras... Here is what i am thinking..

If i use Speedgrade first of all to match the 'as shot' shots for all the cameras and then use those matched files in Prem Pro. I then create a Multi Camera edit and then do any artistic and colour correction stuff on that one main multi cam edit?

The alternative seems to be to edit each camera to the look i want within Prem Pro, but that seems like a lot longer process. Does what i have said make sense to do or am I missing something important as to why thats not a good way to do things?

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1 reply

R Neil Haugen
R Neil Haugen
Legend
January 12, 2017

There are people doing it both ways. SpeedGrade doesn't have a lot of codecs it accepts in stand-alone or "Native" mode, but if you're working in those, it can at times be useful to load up long clips, make most of your color work, and then export from SpeedGrade in a 1080 like Cineform. Import that into PrPro, and start cutting.

Most, however, do it the other way around ... importing into the NLE such as PrPro, and then correcting only the clips which need correction.

Adobe complicated this a bit when with the 2015.3 release, they discontinued the "Send Direct to SpeedGrade" menu option within PrPro, placing SpeedGrade on "hiatus" status. So the official options currently for working with SpeedGrade are 1) use 2015.2  PrPro, along with SpeedGrade 2015.1; or,  2) export an EDL along with a flattened media file from PrPro 2017, and import them into a "native mode" Sg project within Sg2015.1.

As they did this, they did dramatically up the capabilities of the PrPro Color Workspace, the Lumetri panel. Especially with the use of an external surface such as the Tangent Ripple or the full (but spendy) Elements panels, Lumetri can be fairly intuitive & capable and decently quick ... for most simple things.

Shot-matching though possible in Lumetri, is a bit of a pain. And there's only one secondary per instance, though you can stack Lumetri ... which hath further implications. Won't go into all that this post.

There is a very useful and fast alternative, involving Patrick Zadrobilek's app from his NTown Productions site. Pat's an Austrian-based editor/colorist, and he created a small little app that you use by "opening" a PrPro 2017 project file in it, whereupon it auto-saves & increments the file, modifying one character in the header so that Sg 2015.1 will see a 2017 PrPro project file in the "Direct Link" mode.

You open that project file in Sg, do your work, save ... and then re-open that file within Patrick's slick little app, it auto-converts that one character back so that PrPro 2017 sees the project as its own, and you continue working the project in PrPro 2017.

Takes a heck of a lot longer to explain than to do. Used to take me what, five seconds to go from PrPro to Sg? Now, through his app, it takes 20 to 30 seconds ... big whoop.

If you've got any significant shot-matching, or wish to do a number of secondaries on a clip, this is big, as there's an auto-shotmatching button in Sg that typically gets me 90% of the way "there" with the one click, coupled with a full 2/3-up playback screen option.

With simpler work, I do use Lumetri a lot.

Here's the link to a SpeedGrade thread discussing his small and inexpensive app:

Update: My little Speedgrade/Premiere Project Converter still works with 2017

Now ... within PrPro ... you can use a master-clip effect on long bits of media, such that when you use bits of it on a sequence, and go back and make changes in the Master clip settings, all bits used reflect that change. Which would be useful to you.

Further, you could put all of one camera that needs a certain set of adjustments on a sequence, through an adjustment layer over it, make your changes via Lumetri on that AL, and then "nest" that sequence.

When you adjust that nest, it should also adjust any section of that sequence you've cut into other clips. Haven't done that in a couple months, there might be another step or two to check ... so of course, for any of this, TEST!!!!!

Your mileage will always vary.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...
I
IrvsaxAuthor
Known Participant
January 12, 2017

Hi Neil,

Thanks for such a details response. I have to say that some of that has gone over my head, but i get the gist of what you are saying. I am aware of Lumetri and it would certainly be enough to cover what i need to do. I was hoping to use the camera matching facility of speedgrade, which for me is the only advantage speedgrade has over prem pro for what I am looking to do (i think).

So how easy is it to manually match the cameras in Prem Pro? Is there any sort of quick match option like speedgrade has? I know its lazy and not the way to do it, but as someone who is new to it and may be dealing with way more shots than I would like to be learning on, i am looking for the simplest way to get the cameras matched. Either that or I do 20+ takes with a single camera on the shoot.. but then i might get shouted at a lot and the actual quality of the video might get a bit rubbish with the band being pretty fed up!

R Neil Haugen
R Neil Haugen
Legend
January 13, 2017

Lumetri sadly has no auto-shotmatch feature. That little button typically gets me 85% to 90% of the way "there", and not having it in PrPro proper is a royal ... pain. Here's how I set up Prpro & Lumetri ...

I have two monitors, one is a much better one for video monitoring, and I use that as my second monitor, and it's mounted above my "main" UI monitor. They're both 1920x1080 and both calibrated with the Xrite i1 puck/software.

The lower "UI" monitor has "all" of PrPro, and the second one I use as a playback monitor for almost everything, so I normally have Mercury Transmit enabled as shown below ...

Which allows for me to work like this ...

The area above the blue menu bar is the upper playback screen.

To do shotmatching, takes a custom built workspace. This is what I've come up with ...

Again, the area above the blue menu bar is my upper (second) monitor screen.

I turned off the "Mercury Transmit Enable" option with a shortcut key-stroke (explained below), and then created a New Panel within PrPro, dragged that onto the upper (second) screen and manually resized it to full-screen. Then I dragged (left to right) the Source, Reference, and Program monitors onto it up close to the top, so when I released the mouse, the top faint blue bar showed, so they were all side-by-by-side.

Then ... as I only use the Source monitor for reference stills-shot (and that not often) I grabbed the right edge of the Source monitor's window and dragged it way left to shrink it down, then adjusted the Reference and Program monitor windows to be approximately equal. That pretty much sets the upper screen.

For the main panel ... I use the Lumetri panel set to "solo" mode, so only one tab is open at a time ... and wanted a bit more timeline showing ... so I dragged the Lumetri panel off from where it is, and stuff slid to the right. I readjusted the bottom timeline, tools, and Project/Media/etc. panels to the size I wanted, and dragged the "floating" Lumetri panel over up and right until the top faint bar appeared, and dropped it so that it was now the upper right quadrant of the main UI. Then I dragged the Effects Control panel over to join it, as I always want the scopes showing in this workspace. Takes a bit of playing to figure it out, but only a few minutes, really.

Then I saved that workspace as a new custom one, called "ShotMatching", and used the controls to put it on the Workspace bar to the right of the Color workspace name.

As I've said, for everything but shotmatching I'll use the second screen in Mercury Transmit mode as my Program monitor.

To switch to ShotMatching mode, I just hit the Shift-C short to turn off the playback monitor transmit, and select the ShotMatching option from the Workspace bar.

In use for shotmatching ... I use the Reference monitor's playback timeline to set that to the frame I like, and will be matching to. I use the main timeline controls to then move to the frame I wish to match to the one in the Reference monitor. If you click in the Reference monitor, the scopes show that image. If you click the Program monitor or timeline, the scopes show the image in the Program monitor.

Works as well as can be without that auto-shotmatch key and 2-up monitor of SpeedGrade.

I mentioned using a keyboard "short" to turn Mercury Transmit Enable on/off. It's really easy to do.

With Ctrl/cmd-Alt-K, you bring up the Keyboard shortcut control panel. Hold down any modifier key or combination and you will see what shorts are set for what keys with that/those modifier key/s. Say, hold down the Shift key, anything colored with a name is a key with that effect tied to it when used with the Shift key.

As shown below, it's quick & easy to set Mercury Transmit Enabled (sending program monitor to a second screen) so you can toggle it with a keyboard short.

You just type " ena " into the Search box (red 1), click on the "Enable Transmit" option below (red 2), and click in the are above the line of red 3 ... then hold down Shift while tapping the C key (or whichever available key you prefer). Shift-(your choice) is now the shortcut to toggle the playback monitor on/off for the second screen.

That should be enough for now.

And ... there are times I still use Patrick Zadrobilek's slick little (and inexpensive) app to mod a PrPro project file to use it in SpeedGrade 2015.1 in the old "Direct Link" mode, and then after saving my work from SpeedGrade, use his app to revert the PrPro project file so PrPro 2017 sees it as its own file again.

As discussed on the SpeedGrade forum ...

Update: My little Speedgrade/Premiere Project Converter still works with 2017

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...
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