MultiCam Conundrum

So here's a real-world puzzle that I'm trying to solve.
FCP X Expertise Needed to consult:

We're starting production on a new TV Reality-Based show.
We'll have a 3 to 4 camera shoot for each episode. (type of camera is not important)
between 4 to 8 characters will have their own mics for each episode.
Audio will be supplied as a series of seperate WAV files for each character, and the Wav files will not correspond to start-stops of any camera.

(So all cameras, and all audio recordings will be completely unique to themselves.)

I will need to sync them all up together, and cut them in scenes, but maintain access to all mics and cameras. Our story Producers will be doing the first editing pass on the meaterial.

(We currently sync these independent sources in an Avid timeline. One timeline per scene. We then cut them all down right in duplicate timelines- keeping all the original tracks stacked together.

So I understand HOW to sync everything, and how to work with the angle editor, etc.

My concern is that using a multicam source in FCP X will create problems in regard to audio.
Is there an easy way to listen to all the audio sources at the same time, and is there an easy way to turn off selected audio sources- without going into the Angle Editor?
How can we keep all the audio together for the audio engineer that will end up doing the final mix in Pro Tools?

Thank you- in advance- for any insight.
Cheers,
Scott markowitz

Hi Scott.

Did you find any solution to this. I'm in the same situation. Im testing similar number of cameras and characters, with individual .wav mono files that roll all day. In Avid or FCP I would prep this all up into a big 'layup' or 'sync map' and then "group" the .wav audio files to each clip and overwrite them back over. The green 'camera audio' portion of the timeline would be where the .wav files would be.




but it FCP X doesn't seem built for this at all.



It can only create a video layup/sync map and there's nowhere to go from there. You can't get the info you need out of those layers in the angle viewer. Note , only some of those clips are simultaneous action, then they split off one do their own thing, and where they cross over, they obviously need grouping together. And what about my 2nd source audio???
It seems like Mulitcamera Reality TV is in impossibility in the current incarnation of FCP X.
Which is a shame if FCP X wants to be in the Reality TV business, and I want it to be!

What is the common sync variable to all of these clips? TC or audio?

It seems that you have a need that is not a multicam situation. Do it in X exactly as you did it in 7. I'm not sure what "information" you need from each individual shot in order to manually sync them up.

Hey Guys,

I did a tutorial (free) about this... Batch Renaming and Advanced Multicam Sync. Should solve your issue, but let me know if you have any questions. Here's the link:

themovieswemake.com/2012/10/fcpx-batch-r...anced-multicam-sync/

Feel free to check out my other ones as well. There's a bunch of stuff about the new release there:

themovieswemake.com/tutorials/

Anyway, let me know if you have any questions. Good luck!

Sam

Also, check out the Audio Component editing workflow in the above reply I sent. Should answer a lot of your questions.

Basically, my recommendation would be to do this:

1. Watch my batch rename and audio component editing tutorials here: themovieswemake.com/tutorials/
2. Turn your various angles into individual sync clips and enable the components you want to use in each.
3. When you're done with that, use batch rename and custom metadata to set your multicam lanes and let FCPX handle the rest as you sync everything together into one multicam clip, especially if you have timecode to work with... it'll make all of this much easier.
4. When you're finished with that, patch the sound you want to use from your individual angles in your finished multicam clip in the event browser/inspector, and you should be good to go to start editing... although I say that without having the media in front of me, so I imagine there will be additional issues, but this should all work in theory for you.

Just wanted to say thanks a million for this tutorial, this adds more detail than the macbreak studio multicam video tutorials. Love the batch renaming! I never took it that step further!

Thank you, guys for the replies.

It turns out that the audio component tools added to 10.0.6 have solved the problem we were having with second source audio.

Sam, your tutorials were very helpful. Thank you very much for those!

Onward and Upward.

Scott M