Timecode for music video

[Remo Fritzsche]

Dear Community

I'm about to shoot a complex music video, and am giving some thoughts to the use of timecode. My dream scenario would be to play individual parts of the song on set using a notebook (Pro Tools, Digital Performer or Logic). The DAW outputs a TC signal, which is fed into the camera. In post, everything would line up to the song perfectly. Is something like this possible, or are there other ways?

Cheers
Remo

 

[Mark Toia]

Just and idea, Have a mic on your camera, you can auto sync sound from your cameras scratch sound with the audio file in your time line in seconds in FCPX.

 

[Remo Fritzsche]

Yes, I thought about that, too. Not sure if it always syncs nicely, though. Using Resolve 11 for editing (probably).

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Are you recording video at the same time you are recording audio? If so, you cannot depend on getting audio files to line up (because each successive layer will be different). If you have finished audio, and all you are doing is lip syncing/ pantomiming/twerking to the same audio file, then Mark's suggestion will work.

We are just now in the process of answering this question for our purposes, and I think the answer is going to go like this:

All cameras use free-running TOD (time of day) for timecode
All cameras receive SMPTE timecode from DAW into audio channel 1
All cameras receive mono audio send from DAW into audio channel 2

The DAW captures multi-track recording, plus it's own session-relative timecode (which depends on the location of the playhead) to an audio channel
A Harrison X-dubber multitrack recording device records all DAW channels non-stop throughout the day, as well as capturing SMPTE TOD clock to an audio channel.

The audio engineer does mix-down on the DAW and delivers a final mix. The final mix can be decorated with additional tracks of TOD timecode, so that the video editor can see which actual audio (and thus, which relevant video) was used in the final mix.

The video team now has video that matches both true audio (via TOD correspondence) plus song-relative audio (via DAW timecode). To first approximation, this allows the NLE to see all the co-incident video lined up, and the ability to prioritize/ignore the "real" video takes that are actually in the audio.

If you really want to accurately piece together a song in the studio, and you want the video to agree with the audio, that's the best we've been able to figure out thus far.

We have used the open source ltc-tools (https://github.com/x42/ltc-tools) to dig into the audio files and tell us the timecode, since Adobe Premier does not have this feature. FCPX does have this feature, and it may be enough of a reason for us to move back to FCPX. I have submitted a feature request to Adobe and sent them a link to this project, but have heard nothing back yet.

 

[Chris Henze]

My solution is.

In a NLE make a new sequence, making sure that it's the same frame rate as you are planning on shooting in. Then put the song with a 10 second countdown and beeps onto the timeline and add timecode. I even list the parts of the song. Intro, Verse, Chorus etc. Output that sequence as a video file, load it onto a smart phone or tablet. Hook up the phone output of the playback choice to a wireless microphone set-up and the other side goes into a battery operated amp or sound system.

When you want to start a take, playback the phone, show it to the cameras so they can see the TC roll and that's it. My hands were even used for a music video I did a while back. Even if you can't see the TC then there's the beeps for additional help. Here's the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFkYk3kh0HY

 

[Marc Wielage]

When you want to start a take, playback the phone, show it to the cameras so they can see the TC roll and that's it.

What if you're outside, and the sun is so bright it blows out the phone or iPad's LCD screen? This is a good reason for using an actual timecode slate made to show timecode. The other good thing about the slate: if you drop it on concrete, it won't break.

I'm not convinced music playback on a phone will be stable for a minute, let alone a solid 3 or 4-minute take. The issue is that it's going to playback at a very slightly different speed from the original studio WAV file. These sync problems can be fixed, but it's an annoyance and a delay for the editor.