Multi-Camera Video Editing In Premiere... 
   (A six-camera edit, plus more...)
        David Ruether

The following refers to Premiere 5.1, but what I did here should be similar in other good editing programs  (although Sony Vegas Pro and Sony Media Studio HD Platinum 10 are particularly useful for multi-camera  editing...). Below are screen-grabs of a dual-monitor layout of Premiere (at 2x1152x864 resolution), at several  stages of editing a  six-camera project.

The Project...

This wedding promised to be difficult to cover, due to the space, lighting, and the unusually large number of  participants. I decided to cover the ceremony with six cameras, instead of my usual four, to try to get good  views of everything and good sound from everywhere (including a string quartet and large organ in the rear,  a piano and singer and speaker front right, and the priest, rabbi, bride, and groom at the front center).  Only one camera was "attended", from a fixed position during the ceremony; the other five were placed as  unobtrusively as possible, aimed the best I could, and started just before the ceremony began. Even with  the best of plans, some cameras were blocked at times or not aimed ideally, and some audio tracks were  useless (a fan was running in front, the couple and the two officiators moved considerably forward of their  expected locations, and the guests unexpectedly stood for the first half of the ceremony). The camera used  for an important view (though not as important as it was supposed to be, due to changed positions...), gave  me trouble by not properly playing back its own LP-mode tape - the picture had glitches (mostly curable  with frame-substitutions, since there was little motion) and  the sound had spurious noises (mostly curable  with multiple captures with cross-mixing and with local filtering of the sound) - and, yes, I  had checked that  camera before the event... With all of the problems, though (Oh, did I mention it was like a steam-bath in  the chapel that day? Without the sweat-band I bought earlier in the day, I would not have been able to see  much of what I was doing...!), the resulting video looks and sounds good - with everything audible, and  with all but the lighting of the candles clearly visible. Not a bad outcome, if  a bit of work getting there!

Laying out and synchronizing the multiple video tracks, and editing the audio...

I first added all the multi-camera ceremony material to the timeline, synchronizing the tracks as I went. The  most important camera views  went on video tracks 1 and 2, with successively less likely to be used material  placed on higher tracks. With this project, I did not capture (or have) video that spanned the entire project  length from all of the cameras, but a photographer with a rather strong flash (generally a  "no-no" in a wedding ceremony...) made it easy to synchronize the various parts. To help keep things organized, I  renamed the various video tracks for the cameras used (see image below). Two of the cameras in this project (with fisheye converters on) were hung upside down to save space and to better place the on-camera  microphones in the tight quarters available (unfortunately, the "action" moved about 6' ahead of where I  thought it was going to be, introducing camera "aiming" problems and audio problems from the more distant than intended mic positions [and from the large fan that remained running nearby - but one can work wonders  with Cool Edit noise-reduction and manual gain adjustments!]). Processed sound clips were added to the  audio tracks in spaces available, in synch. After noise-reduction, EQing, level-adjusts, and mixing (only  three of the six original audio tracks were used in this project), the audio was exported as a single file,  then imported and placed on an available audio track. Only this track remained "on" at this point, but the  remaining audio remained on the timeline to aid in resynchronizing the tracks if I moved any by mistake  during picture editing. I also generally cut vertically through all the tracks near the beginning and end of the  multi-camera section and moved the short ends away to clearly mark the beginning and end points of that  section. These points were selected to blend easily with the single-camera material that went before and  after the multi-camera section.

Editing the picture...

Minor gain adjustments were made to this final audio track mix, including the beginning and ending fades,  then the picture editing began. Tests were first made to establish the filtration for color and tone to best match  the appearance of all the tracks, and notes on these were made before removing the filters to speed the next  step (the filters were applied to the first clip in each track just before final rendering, with "paste custom"  being used to copy the filters to the other clips in a track). The picture editing was done by cutting each  track at the end of a clip wanted, and rolling the unwanted part to the right (while viewing the material in  the preview window) until useful material was again found in this track (that end would then be left until the  editing sequence caught up with it, at which time the decision was made to keep or remove this part of this  camera's track). The video on track 1 was left intact. The "cut-and-roll-back" method of viewing each track  has the advantage of combining viewing and edit decision-making in a way that does not disturb other parts  of the edit. For this project, mostly "S"-shaped dissolves were used for smooth transitions between clips,  using the track "rubber bands" to shape them. Sections of the edit were rendered to check for transition  smoothness, duration, timing, and rhythm. Corrections were then made, before  moving on to the next section. Occasionally the motion tool was used to smooth a pan (or correct a poor end point) or to reframe one of  the fisheye tracks where the groom's head was too near the top (see image below, which shows a framing  correction that remains outside  the "TV-safe" viewing area, in addition to inverting the picture). Any  "picture-in-picture" or other effects were then added along with the filtration needed to match the  video tracks.

Simplifying the audio on the timeline...

The unused audio tracks have been removed (though I generally retain both the original mix-down track,  and the subsequent copies that come along with the new picture files). After editing (including the placing of  the picture filters and local motion-adjusts, and the inverting of the fisheye images on two of the tracks [with  "motion", with coordinates 0, .5 and with 180-degree rotation, plus "reverse field order" in "field options" in  Premiere 6]), rendering of the whole project, making a "safety" tape copy, and exporting/importing video  files to replace the original material, it was time to also simplify the video tracks in preparation for adding  new material at the project ends.

Simplifying the video on the timeline...

One of the two remaining audio tracks was silenced, but retained for safety. With this project, I waited until  after the basic edit (with included color and tone adjustments) was finished, and applied an 8% sharpening  to the whole multi-camera section. At this point I would also add a "global" color correction to this section,  if needed. This was also the time to make all remaining minor corrections to the editing that were missed in  the last step. In this project I added close-ups (synchronized in the appropriate places) of the singer, pianist,  and quartet (shot during practice before the ceremony - see timeline image below, which shows the  additions to the ceremony).

Adding the remaining material in the first half...

All the single-camera material was added that went before and after the multi-camera section of this  project (in the image above, the material preceding the ceremony has been edited; the material following  the ceremony is unedited), except for the reception footage, which was edited in another project (see last  screen-grab, below). I also renamed the tracks, removing the camera names.

Editing the remaining material in the first half...

Some of the editing near the end of the first half of this project is shown above (the garden party, that  continued until dark...). The  total length of my wedding videos is usually about 2.5 hours, which includes  the rehearsal, pre-ceremony activities, the ceremony, post-ceremony activities, the group-photo shooting,  the garden party (in this wedding), and the reception, with all its many parts (the record for the toasts  during a video, BTW, is 42 minutes!!!). This video was about 2 hours and forty minutes in total length,  and I do point out to clients the usefulness of the fast-forward button on the playback device remote while  viewing... (most clients prefer to have a good record of all the wedding events of the day, discouraging  "excerpting" on my part during the ceremony and toasts).

Editing the reception...

The second half of the video (the reception) was edited on another computer, with the layout on a 17" and  a 19" monitor shown above. I now prefer using a single 24" LCD monitor at 1920x1200 resolution with the   various editing programs I've edited with, for both SD and HD (for screen grabs of these, go here, and for  more on HD editing, see my "Comments On Some HDV (And AVCHD) HD Editing Software"). Almost the  entire reception was shot under dimmed tungsten lighting and candles, and needed color-correcting (often  key-framed to compensate for different light balances around the main room). Each of these two 1:20 sections  was mastered to one Mini-DV SP-mode 80-minute tape, one Mini-DV LP-mode 60-minute  tape, and one  D8 SP-mode 90-minute tape for preservation, and the two halves were assembled on the VHS SP-mode  2:40 tape copies supplied to the client. Each half can also be supplied on a DVD or Hi-8/Mini-DV/D8 tape,  if the client prefers...

 

David Ruether

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