Computer Editing: Multi-Camera Editing (page 2)

ACT THREE: The Kindest Cut

OK, you've synced your three tracks, now it's time to start editing your show. When video clips are stacked on an editor, the clips on the highest tracks appear in front of the clips on lower tracks. So unless you shrink the visible windows you'll only be able to see one video track at a time.

If you have tons of time for editing, it's possible to shrink all three video tracks into quarter-screen sizes and position them so that you can see them simultaneously. It's a cool technique for creating a virtual monitor array but it's extremely render intensive and time consuming.

If you just want to cut your program, without a lot of pre-rendering, it's much easier to simply turn your various video tracks on and off as you go through your footage. Usually, editor configuration allows that if you disable Track 3, Track 2 shows on the monitor. Disable 2 and 3 and you see Track 1. So, watching your various camera shots is as simple as clicking your video tracks on and off as you go through your timeline.

One good organizational approach to this kind of switch editing is designating one track as the master shot and putting that on your foreground track. This might be a wide shot showing the action across the stage. You will also need to select a master audio track that will run for the duration of the video. Make sure you unlink the audio from the video to isolate the streams (see Figure 2). Watch the footage all the way through using your track markers, noting where your closeups would be better. Then use your razor tool to cut the wide shots away, revealing the synchronized closeup from Camera 2 or 3 on the track below. Voilà! You have a perfectly switched, error-free three-camera shoot (see Figure 3).

Another approach is watching each of your three tracks, and placing edit markers to denote either bad or good footage. Whichever approach you take, the final step is to take out your razor-blade tool and simply cut out the portions you won't use in your final program.

The real magic of computer editing is that if you cut out the shots from Camera 1 and Camera 2, leaving Camera 3, then decide that Camera 2 really held the best angle, you can grab and drag the various clip handles around and recover footage in a flash.

By trimming the in and out points, you can fine-tune your cuts between cameras so that each transition is precisely where you want it. And if you decide you need a dissolve, wipe or even a split-screen effect between your shots, you can do it in a couple of clicks.

Take a Bow

We're living in a time of amazingly affordable digital video-production tools, including a wide range of multi-camera capable, affordable editing systems. It's time to bring down the curtain on the past, when multi-camera editing was the sole province of TV studios and high-dollar production facilities. Today, it's for all of us. So, don't be afraid to change your favorite cue from "roll camera" to "roll all cameras.