Multicam in Premiere Elements 14

[tba20042003]

Hi,

The school I am working at is putting on Les Miserables in 10 days' time and we have purchased the rights to video it. We plan to use 3 cameras - one central, and one either side of the stage. I have Premiere Elements 14 but have only ever used it for one camera editing. I'd be really grateful for any hints, tips, advice, pitfalls etc. about creating a DVD with views from all 3 cameras made into one performance. I'm a little concerned about audio - is it possible just to use one audio source all the way through, even if swapping which camera view is being used for a particular clip.

Thank you in advance.

Tom

[Bill Sprague]

Other editors have specific multi camera tools.  Premiere Pro CC is one.  I've never used them, so not sure what they are or how they wor

I did a three camera shoot of family elder at a reunion.  I used two techniques.

First is to put clips from the cameras next to each other in the timeline like they were all from the same camera. 

Second, is to have a primary on Video/Audio 1.  Then clips from the other two cameras can be used on tracks above it with the audio de-selected or even deleted.  It gets hard if the second camera clips need to be synced with the primary audio, but it can be done.

Creating a DVD, by definition, is low resolution for old TVs.  Find something better.

Be very concerned about audio.  The easiest would be to find a feed from the sound system and direct it into the primary camera.  Then, were appropriate different video views put on top. 

If this is your first effort, get some practice! 

A multi camera shoot is hard technically and creatively. 

Good luck!  It sounds like fun!

[tba20042003]

Many thanks for your reply.

What would you recommend instead of DVD? The aim is to give every student in the cast a copy of the performance, so is there a better medium to give them?

Also, we've hired a pro HD camera for the primary camera, so I'm assuming it should be straight-forward to take a stereo feed from the desk and input it into the camera? I think that would require a long lead, but we can source that.

Thanks again.

Tom

[Bill Sprague]

tba20042003  wrote

What would you recommend instead of DVD?

Also, we've hired a pro HD camera for the primary camera, so I'm assuming it should be straight-forward to take a stereo feed from the desk and input it into the camera?

DVD is universal, but low quality.  Blu-Ray is HD quality, but not universal.  Today's students want to see it on their devices, so putting an MP4 on YouTube or Vimeo works well.  Some may want just the MP4 on their computer sent via DropBox. Today's expectations are "I want it my way!"

Don't take audio for granted.  Be sure you have the camera, the proper cable(s) and soundboard working well before you have to!

[Steve Grisetti]

I very much agree with Bill's suggestion that you consider a different video editor for this kind of work. Premiere Pro, as he said, has a multicam editor built into it -- and there's really no match for that kind of simplicity. Trying to edit multicamera in Premiere Elements is a very messy task.

In the under $100 range, both Vegas Movie Studio and CyberLink PowerDirector have multicam editors built into their video editing software. So, if you can't afford Premiere Pro, you may want to look into them for editing multicam. I even have a couple tutorial series on YouTube showing how to do it with both those programs.

[tba20042003]

Many thanks Steve. I've just checked on the software we have in school, and we do in fact have Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 - does that have a multicam editing feature?

Cheers.

Tom

[Steve Grisetti]

Apparently so.

Multicamera Editing in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 - YouTube