Recording a concert, need some advice
 

Hello everyone. In a few weeks i'll be filming a concert at a local club here. I'll be using three Canon XL2s, shooting in 24p 16:9. But I have a few questions, since much of this is new to me. Firstly, I plan to edit in FCPHD, and I was wondering if there is anything I can do to make sure that editing is as easy as possible. How does FCPHD handle multi-camera shooting? How can I be sure that the time code is the same on all cameras?

Also, regarding audio. I plan to plug into the soundboard using a DAT recorder. Does anyone have any experience with this? Any suggestions on what type to rent or tricks on how to use it? Once recorded, is it easy to get it into digital form onto my mac, which then can be imported into FCP and aligned with my footage. Sorry for my newbieness, but everyones got to learn sometime right?

Get a mic or two for some ambience, crowd noise, reverb, also.
Can you get the band to start their show with a large explosion? That would help sync up all the cameras and audio. LOL

As far as tricks, the best trick I know is to try everything before you have to use it for real.

You should be able to easily sync up the cameras to a flash (i.e. from a disposable camera). Just write down when the flash occurs and it should be easy to find the one frame lit up by the flash.

Not sure how you're going to get the sound to sync. It could be done easily if someone taps of the mic or you watch the drums closely for when the cymbal is hit.

A slate/clapboard would also work, but I assume that's impractical.

2- Are you going to have to change tapes in between?

That was actually another thing I was wondering about (forgot to ask). It's a couple hours, and I have no idea how i'm going to get around the 1 hour= 1 tape restriction.

Mike

The best way to get around the limitations of tape is to simply not use tape. See our Tapeless Recording Solutions category for more info, including the Amazing FireStore.

This is how I do it.

I start the cameras and let them record, never pausing them. Then I load all the video into Final Cut. I look for an event anywhere in video that appears in all the tapes, like a quick hand gesture and advance frame by frame till I get some thing like a full extension that is a unique frame and I put a marker on that frame. Once the marker is set, drag the entire unedited video to the sequence time line. Then I find the same frame event in each camera's video and put a marker on the unique event and drag the video onto another video track in the sequence. Then with snapping turned on in Final Cut, you just drag one marker to match up with the marker in another video track and you're done. The entire hour of video will be synced. I usually have a stationary camera that I use as the base video track (I have the good audio on this tape too). Then I go through the different video tracks with the razor tool cutting out and deleting the bits I don't want while leaving the base track untouched. The you can add transitions, effects and of course you can even adjust those cuts you made.

The trouble with this method is that it takes a lot of hard disk space and it takes time to load all that video in too. But I would rather sync an hour's worth of video just once instead of doing it for each song.