MUSIC VIDEO SYNC ISSUE Frame Rate.

[BigLu]

Someone please help.
build 16
Shooting
On RED 4K 2 to 1
Set at 23.98

Audio
Playback is @ 29.97
Slate is at 29.97

1. Should this be fine? I have been told yet it should be just fine for post. No drifting or issues should arise.

2. Is this better than having
Camera at 23.98 and audio at 23.98? That sounds more logical to me but I need to confirm.

3. I have my FCP system here on set. So im doing a test to see if it drifts.

I Have dragged and dropped ProRes Files from the Hard Drive into FCP and rendered them out. Proxies of H.
I have the CD song, 1 ch is the song ch 2 is time code.

For a Dummy like me.
How do i sync this up??
There is no audio recording to the camera.
Don't know why It was just set up this way PER the AC.
"They are film guys"

It was all a TC Slate for syncing up
I kinda understand that i should be able to sync up my music by using the TC Slate on video?
If so How please.

Thank you anyone for your help.

 

[ThomtheEditor]

i've done several music videos this way, tc on the slate ALWAYS drifts, but your song (lip sync) will still be in sync with the vocals, depending of course on how good your artist is at lip syncing ESPECIALLY if you're shooting off or variable frame rates at all. I would really recommend laying down a wild sound track to your red, it will help immensely with the sync and keep you or your poor editor from having to do it all visually (i've done it myself sever times and always want to kill someone at the end of it)

As for how to phsyiclly do it? You get a dat or similar machine to be your playback deck and force timecode to the slate based on dat timecode, then for your master track for the video you capture from dat and then in theory whatever timecode the slate reads on set should be exactly the same spot in the song!

Hope that helps! Good luck!
~T

 

[Kevin Stanley]

Hi Luis, I already IM'd you but just so everyone here can see the response.

Sync by viewing slate clacking and match up with audio of slate clacking, the 23.98 video and 29.97 audio will match up exactly and should not drift once synced. If you ran timecode generators (ie. ambient lockit!) you could try to sync using timecode assuming you started at the 00 frame of TC on both the video and audio devices.

Kevin

 

[ThomtheEditor]

Sync by viewing slate clacking and match up with audio of slate clacking, the 23.98 video and 29.97 audio will match up exactly and should not drift once synced.

Then we need to hire your AC's! we almost never get that lucky!

 

[BigLu]

LOL Ha thanks guys

Thank you Kevin and ThomTHEEDITOR!

 

[Scott Simmons]

Here's how you can fix it ... take your 29.97 DAT and do a tape to tape edit and dub the DAT to a piece of 23.98 HDCAM tape. Pull the edit at 01:00:00:00 so that first 01:00:00:00 frame of the DAT is the same on the 23.98 HDCAM to make the dub. Then use that HDCAM as the audio master.

 

[M Most]

Here's how you can fix it ... take your 29.97 DAT and do a tape to tape edit and dub the DAT to a piece of 23.98 HDCAM tape. Pull the edit at 01:00:00:00 so that first 01:00:00:00 frame of the DAT is the same on the 23.98 HDCAM to make the dub. Then use that HDCAM as the audio master.

There's no need to "fix" anything. Nothing is going to drift because nothing is going to be pulled down in post. The picture is going to be used at the speed it was shot (23.98), and the sound is going to be used at the speed it was played back (29.97). Nothing changes. Everything stays in sync.

As for time code, the actual time code is irrelevant. What is relevant is to have a way to see it in the picture. You can use a time code slate that is directly connected to the playback deck (that's the way it's usually done in professional productions, using a DAT as the playback source), or in a pinch, do something clever - like, for instance, recording the playback on an iPod by marrying it with video that has a large time code window, and photographing the iPod - with the track running - at the head of each shot.

 

[Scott Simmons]

There's no need to "fix" anything. Nothing is going to drift because nothing is going to be pulled down in post. The picture is going to be used at the speed it was shot (23.98), and the sound is going to be used at the speed it was played back (29.97). Nothing changes. Everything stays in sync.

As for time code, the actual time code is irrelevant. What is relevant is to have a way to see it in the picture. You can use a time code slate that is directly connected to the playback deck (that's the way it's usually done in professional productions, using a DAT as the playback source), or in a pinch, do something clever - like, for instance, recording the playback on an iPod by marrying it with video that has a large time code window, and photographing the iPod - with the track running - at the head of each shot.

Timecode is relevant in the sense that you use the timecode numbers on the slate to sync and create your group clips. Shooting 23.98 on cam and 29.97 in playback means those numbers won't "sync" properly. Doing the "fix" I described in my other post fixes that relationship between the codes so things can be synced the normal way. Yes they are actually the same length and can be manually synced but then if you are doing playback you want to be able to use the slates to sync, as that's the whole point of having them. An iPod slate is a great idea which I've used a lot and written about .... here.

 

[M Most]

Timecode is relevant in the sense that you use the timecode numbers on the slate to sync and create your group clips. Shooting 23.98 on cam and 29.97 in playback means those numbers won't "sync" properly.

I haven't had to use group clips in Final Cut very much, but on an Avid, this is not a problem. You create a group clip with multiple picture tracks but only one sound track, and deselect "audio follows video". You line up everything to a common point and voila. As for different time code rates, this is done every day on every show I've ever worked on. What's important is not the time code itself but the speed at which the clip is playing. In the case of sound clips (I'm assuming that the sound is coming in directly from the sound source, most likely as a WAV or AIFF file) time code is merely a reference stamp at the head of the file. The actual speed of the file is determined by its sampling rate, regardless of the time code base, and the time code is only a calculated reference number. That's why you can do subframe slips with sound in both video and audio editing software.

 

[Scott Simmons]

In music video you usually take the sound from a separate audio pack that has been created with a master timecode that is used to drive the timecode slate. You lay that down in the timeline and don't have to take any audio from picture. Usually on a film shoot there is none anyway. The master timecode references that timecode on the slate and viola, group everything by that timecode assigned as an auxiliary timecode and everything is in sync. Works the same in FCP. I say that TC is important in that while the speed of both tc bases is the same, 23.98 & 29.97, (this is why you can manually sync by eye and it works) with those different TC bases the numbers don't match up, as in the 29.97 slate and the 23.98 footage shot via RED. I've done 5 RED music videos thus far and it hasn't worked once, thus the workaround of creating a new audio master on a 23.98 HDCAM tape. That one worked like a charm!

 

[M Most]

In music video you usually take the sound from a separate audio pack that has been created with a master timecode that is used to drive the timecode slate. You lay that down in the timeline and don't have to take any audio from picture.

OK, I see. That makes sense, but there's a much easier way to create a sound file with 24 frame time code. Open the sound file in Final Cut. Pull down "Modify->Timecode" and create a time code track for the sound file that is whatever frame rate you need (24 or 30, usually). You can choose to initialize on the first frame of the file, or whatever frame you're sitting on ("current"). The time stamp will be written in to the WAV (or AIFF, they both support timecode stamps) file without having to export. No tape bounces, no need for an HDCam deck. While you're in Final Cut, you can create a Quicktime file for playback with the timecode displayed in the video track. Export to iPod (if you're using that method) or whatever else you're using for time coded playback (you could just play it in Quicktime Player on a laptop and photograph the screen). Save the original WAV with the new time code stamp for editorial.

 

[Shawn Booth]

Hi Luis, I already IM'd you but just so everyone here can see the response.

Sync by viewing slate clacking and match up with audio of slate clacking, the 23.98 video and 29.97 audio will match up exactly and should not drift once synced. If you ran timecode generators (ie. ambient lockit!) you could try to sync using timecode assuming you started at the 00 frame of TC on both the video and audio devices.

Kevin

If the 2nd AC closed the slate that is... Usually the slate isn't clapped on a music video, it's just held open in front of the lens for a few seconds so timecode is used for syncing purposes.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

Ipod as timecode slate (link).