Avid vs Premiere
 

I am learning Avid right now. And I want to know if there is an easy way to do something that I can very easily do in Premiere Preo.

Here's my problem. With Premiere, when I use to shoot a wedding or concert with two cameras, I set one as my wide establishing shot and the other for my various closeups (guitar frets and hands, the kiss, backup singers, ect). I never stop either camera. So I end up with a huge clip from each camera (about 30 minutes).

Then for editing I would overlay both clips in their own video and audio tracts and nudge one of them left or right till they are perfectly matched in time.

Now the easy part. I watch the video tract that has my closeups, then cut out all the spots that have unwanted camera movement, add a dissolve, and it's done!

Is there anyway to do this easily in Avid. Trim mode seems to be the appropriate counterpart as far as I can see. I will admit that Avid looks cool if you are working with a lot of clips. But I am working with two 30 minute clips that must be overlayed and synched exactly.

If Avid can't do this, I probably won't bother learning anymore. Because this is an editing technique that I use a lot, and it saves me a lot of time.

AD

It's just different in Avid. You can use multicam by using a Group clip (combine both clip into one), play multicam in source monitor and they play in sync and then edit or use a simple Gang function which you would lay your main WS clip into timeline, find a sync point in CU footage, hit gang (looks like 2 circles with loop around both, like reel to reel icon). And then both the source and edit move in sync.

Cheers,

In Avid Liquid, you would mark a sync point on each track in the viewer (I usually then verify in a timeline). You then select them, right-click and select Multicam. You select First Marker and Sync. Open the new sync track and it displays all the tracks in a square panel like a switch. You can play it fullscreen and just click to select the active track. You can stop, move back and forth, delete selections, etc. while in the multicam view. I use if for 3 camera marching band videos.

In fact, the multicam feature is quite perfect for what you are doing. Once you have both clips in a group clip you can cut the video 'live' with F keys and then correct and adjust what's needed.

Another, very simple and mechanical way of soing this is simply cut the two tracks into V1 and V2 with their audio in A1-2 and A3-4 and then use the H key short cut to split the upper video track wherever you want to and delete the unwanted clips without moving anything else. Then you can adjust the individual cuts by using trim on the clips on V2.

It might sound complicated but it really is very very simple. Just try it and you'll see how easy any of the methods outlined here are. :-)

I think I will try the multicam method. That sounds the closest to what I was doing in Premiere. I will give it a shot and let you guys know how it turned out.

Thanks.

The multicam feature is the best way to go about this, yes, but I also wanted to note that if you want to edit your sequence using the Overlay The CU Track and Cut The Bad Stuff Out method, you can add locators to keep in sync. For example, if you put locators on your V1-2 and A1-4 tracks at, say, 00:04:00:00, and for some reason or another one of your tracks gets moved on the timeline, you know exactly where your sync point.

I can see why you would want to do it this way since it's not necessary for you to look at the static wide shot camera.

This is what I'd do if you want to closely mimic your process using Avid Xpress Pro...

I'll assume you know how to sync two video tracks in Avid.
Lay wide shot camera on V1.
Lay closeup camera on V2.
Scan V2 for sections you want to remove and mark them with in/out buttons. Then instead of "cut" use the "lift" key to remove those sections .
When you are done add your dissolves. That's it.

You can match frame from either video track to get the synced audio in your timeline.

Actually, I don't know how to synch the tracts. But I will figure that out first.

I think what I really need is a good tutorial that I can use to learn all the editing methods available to me. I have the Avid tutorial that came with the program, but it is very basic.

Do you know of a good tutorial that I can use to learn basic and advance editing techniques? I think if I had a good tutorial to follow, I probably wouldn't have had to start this thread in the first place.

Thanks for your help.

AD

Hi Alfred,

Maybe some of these ideas and links to free tutorials will help...

First off I don't don't know which version of Avid or platform you are on but a lot of these are common to all...except Liquid. Just for reference I'm using Xpress Pro v5.7 on Window XP Pro.

~There is the Avid Xpress Pro Help which shows up in your programs and in the Avid interface itself and is searchable. There is also a list of shortcuts in a drop down menu on the top toolbar with Avid open.

~Here's a link to free tutorials from the Avid site that you can watch and learn from at your leasure. Just scroll down to your product tutorials and grab a beverage.

http://www.avid.com/community/tutorials/index.asp

~Avid Toolbox for tips and tricks...click on "more tips and tricks"...

http://www.avid.com/community/toolbox/index.asp

~There's also ALEX (Avid learning excellerator). Requires registration.

http://learn.avid.com/alex/lms

http://www.avid.com/community/tutorials/training.asp (Xpress Pro free tutorials at the bottom)

~http://learn.avid.com/content/tutorials/index.html#

~Quick Tours

http://www.avid.com/video/xpressDemo...sp?currVideo=1

~Avid Forums, good source of info...

http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/

~Starter tips and guides from the PC forum...check "everything you need to know start here"...

http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/thread/111617.aspx

Hope some of those help you out. Best of luck.
Jeff

Jeff,

Thanks. I will be using the tutorials ASAP. I just syched my two video tracks using trim mode to line them up. Then I locked the synch controls on all the audio tracks and video one. And now I am going through and marking in and out points on video two and lifting out the video I don't want. It is working very smooth and fast. All I will have to do is add the dissolves and the wedding portion is done.

I am very pleased with how Avid is handling this. I was a little concerned at first because I didn't know if Avid could do this type of editing with ease. The answer is it does! It's hard to switch from one editing program to another. And it really helps having a forum where people are willing to steer me in the right direction.

I will post the better parts of the wedding when I am finished.

Thanks.

AD