Premiere Pro CC: Multicam Cookbook

This “cookbook” is designed to provide a checklist to quickly create, view and edit multicam sequences in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

Creating a multicam sequence is simple if you follow these instructions. A single sequence can contain video, audio, and/or stills. Premiere Pro calls these “multi-camera sequences,” because this is a special sequence that contains more than one clip. (I call them “multicam sequences,” because the term is shorter.)

NOTE: Multicam editing is NOT the same as audio mixing. Use multicam editing to edit your video, then, in a second pass, work on your mix.

A single multicam sequence can contain video, audio, and/or stills. While you can mix and match codecs, frame size, frame rate and scanning, you will get the best performance if all these match. Of these, matching frame rate is the most important.

GET IN SYNC

Before creating the multicam sequence, all elements need to have a sync point. You can sync using a common:

• In
• Out
• Matching timecode
• Named marker
• Audio waveforms

Syncing on audio is the slowest, timecode is the easiest and my preference is using clapper slates and Ins, because I never have the gear on set to send matching timecode to all cameras. If you use clapper slates, it is easiest to mark the clap with an In. If you use markers, all markers used to indicate a sync point must have the same name, though they need not be the first marker in the clip. Syncing on audio requires all clips have the same audio recorded on them, which rules out using this technique to sync still images.

NOTE: The speed of your storage will determine how many clips you can edit at once. If performance is an issue, transcode the clips into proxies. You can edit at least 3X the number of clips using proxies than camera native media.

BUILD AND EDIT A MULTICAM CLIP

1. Create a sync point for each clip, unless you are syncing using timecode or audio.
2. Select all elements to combine into the sequence in the Project panel.
3. Create a multi-camera source sequence. Choose Clip > Create Multi-camera Source Sequence. (You can also select this option by right-clicking one of the selected clips in the Project panel.)
4. In the Create Multicam Sequence dialog, select the sync method. (As a note, you can also add clips to a multi-camera sequence after it’s been created.) Then, in that same panel:
   1. Audio > Camera 1. This plays audio only from the first clip in the sequence.
   2. Audio > All Cameras. This plays audio from all audio sources.
   3. Audio > Switch Audio. This changes the audio source as the camera angle changes.
5. To open a multicam sequence for editing, right-click the sequence in the Project panel and select: Open in timeline. When the multicam sequence is displayed in the timeline, click the Mute button for each audio track to turn it on or off, as necessary.
6. Double-click to load the multicam sequence into the Source monitor.
7. If necessary, click the Wrench icon in the lower-right of the Source monitor and select Edit Cameras. This allows changing the display order of clips by dragging the clip names up or down, as well as the ability to make angles inactive, or active, by checking or unchecking the boxes to the right.
8. If necessary, set an In and/or Out for the multicam sequence in the Source monitor, the same as with any other clip you are about to edit into the timeline.
9. Open the sequence in the timeline into which you want to edit the multicam sequence. (What you are actually doing is editing a sequence into another sequence.)
10. Edit the multicam sequence into the timeline.
11. In the Program monitor, click the Wrench and choose Window > Multi-camera to edit the sequence. (The image grid automatically includes all current angles in the sequence, up to 16 images.)
12. Click the Playback button to begin playback.
13. To change angles, either click the camera image in the Multi-camera Monitor, or type Control+1 – 9 on the main keyboard (not the keypad).
14. After editing, to replace one shot with another, put the timeline playhead in the shot you want to change and click the image of the new shot in the Multi-camera Monitor.
15. To cut and change angles, place the playhead where you want the cut to occur and Command-click the new image in the Multi-camera Monitor.
16. Adjust and refine edit points using the roll trim, and other standard trimming techniques. (Avoid using a ripple trim to prevent jumps in the action or audio.)
17. Add transitions, or effects, and polish as necessary.
18. When editing is complete, select the entire multicam sequence in the timeline and choose Clip > Multicam > Flatten. This reduces the stress on your hard disk by only playing the angles that are active in the timeline.

NOTE: Once flattened, you can not “unflatten” a multicam sequence for additional editing.

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