Things to Remember

The biggest thing to remember about multi-cam shooting is to not stop any of your cameras until the shoot is complete. If a camera is stopped, you will lose your referenced sync point and have to create a new one for that camera. If you do stop one of your cameras, you must break the resulting clip up and create a second sync point for the new clip that starts after the initial sync point. Fortunately, with Premiere Pro 2.0 creating a second sync point is as easy as assigning two Numbered markers and using the Synchronize feature.

The workflow for shooting is

1.	Start all cameras recording.
2.	Use a slate or flash bulb to establish a sync point.
3.	Continue recording material.
4.	When all the material is complete, stop each camera.

The workflow for editing is

1.	Create a source sequence and layer each camera on top of the other (up to four tracks).
2.	Identify the sync point in each shot and assign the same Numbered marker to each clip at that point.
3.	Select all the video tracks and right-click on the selection. Choose Synchronize and use the Numbered Clip Marker option assigned to the marker value you applied.
4.	Nest the source sequence into a new sequence.
5.	Right-click on the nested source sequence and choose Multi-Cam > Enable.
6.	With the new sequence active open the Multi-Cam Monitor and start editing.
7.	Adjust and modify edit points between shots in the sequence using the Rolling Edit tool.
8.	Adjust and swap shots by right-clicking on any clip in your nested multi-cam sequence and selecting an alternate clip from the Multi-Cam menu.

This new workflow is very straightforward, and you now should be familiar enough with the tools and their behavior to get expected results. When using Numbered markers, custom timecode, or preassigned timecode values, remember that synchronization is always going to shift the clips that are not on the target track to align in the manner executed to the clip on the target track. If you want to synchronize to audio be sure that no video tracks are selected.

As for music videos when you are starting out, don't worry about having the Smart Slate or all the audio bells and whistles; just put as much money into the production of the video to make it look good as you can. There are easy ways to solve your audio and sync problems in post-production.

If you can shoot with synchronous timecode between all your cameras then it's very simple to align the shots in the timeline. If you have reference timecode that is visually shot but not recorded to tape, simply reassign the timecode to the clips and then synchronize them in the timeline.

If you are interested in viewing any of these videos in their entirety you can see them on my Web site at www.formikafilms.com.

Additional Chapters on DVD

Although this is the last page, it's not the end of the book.

Because Premiere Pro 2.0 has more features than will fit between these covers, on the DVD you'll find three bonus chapters that describe how professionals get things done. In these PDF files you'll learn to use the indispensable Adobe Clip Notes and Project Manager tools (Chapter 228), to encode into Flash, H.264, and Windows Media using the Adobe Media Encoder (Chapter 29), and to navigate the standards and settings for high-definition video (Chapter 30). If you want to stay ahead of your competition, pop in the DVD, head for the VI Professional Workflows folder, and keep reading.