Australian film - Federation of Australian Movie Makers

Bits & Pieces with Rob Farquharson
Multicamera Editing With Sony Vegas
Recently I was asked to record an end of year public show staged by an amateur circus group
and I decided that a multicamera shoot was necessary. The cameras were set up as shown
below:
Camera one was positioned well above the
heads of the audience and was used to capture
long to medium shots. Camera two was placed
on the floor and was above head level. It was
used to capture medium close-ups to close-ups.
Camera three was in a similar position on the
other side of the hall and was used to cover
mostly medium to medium close-ups. A fourth
camera was used in VCR mode to capture
sound directly from the sound mixing desk via
a stereo line out.
There was no chance to see the show in advance
as no full dress rehearsal was held. The
positioning of the cameras and lighting were
out of my control and I had to make the best of the situation as it unfolded. Camera one (an HDV camera fitted with
a directional shotgun microphone) was not manned and the extra resolution of HDV was to be used to zoom the picture
in as necessary in Vegas (the new Pro 9 version in this case). I manned camera two and the President of the
Newcastle and Hunter Valley Cine Society, Frank Embleton, manned camera three. There was no electronic synchronisation
system used. The show consisted of a first half of 45 minutes duration and a second half of 25 minutes duration.
A separate mini DV tape was used for each half in each camera, giving a total of six tapes with video and audio
and two tapes with audio only. All cameras were allowed to run continuously throughout the performances to enable
speedier synchronisation of the various tracks when loaded into Vegas. The shoot was done in widescreen mode.
After capturing the video from each tape, the video files were imported into Vegas, with the video/audio material
from each tape being placed on a separate track as shown below.
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Australian film & video