Final Cut Pro X Multicam editing tips and tricks

Following tips can help you streamline your multicam workflow in Final Cut Pro X:

– Set the date, the time, and the time zone on your camcorder or recording device before you shoot footage for your multicam project. This provides useful information to Final Cut Pro during the automatic multicam clip creation process.

Note: At any time, you can change the Content Created date and time of your source clips in the Event Browser. Just select one or more clips and choose Modify > Adjust Content Created Date and Time.

– Because you can use the sophisticated automatic audio sync feature in Final Cut Pro to help ensure multicam synchronization accuracy, it makes sense to record audio on every camcorder and recording device in your multicam production. (Clear audio recordings provide the best results.)

– Before you edit multicam clips in the Angle Editor, duplicate them in the Event Browser to maintain clean backup copies.

– To double-check the synchronization of individual angles in a multicam clip, open the clip in the Angle Editor and turn on audio monitoring for two or more angles at a time. You will hear immediately if the angles are in sync or if you need to adjust them further.

– If performance becomes an issue while you’re working on a multicam project, do any of the following:

1. Set Final Cut Pro to use proxy playback by selecting “Use proxy media” in Playback preferences. Proxy playback allows you to play back more angles at a time. To use proxy playback, you must have proxy versions of your media available, or you must create proxy versions. For more information about creating proxy versions, see Transcode media files.

2. Make sure that “Create optimized media for multicam clips” is selected in Playback preferences. For more information, see Playback preferences.

3. This option transcodes video to the Apple ProRes 422 codec format, which provides better performance during multicam editing. This option is turned on by default. If the original camera format can be edited with good performance, you can deselect this checkbox.

– Make sure that the hard disk holding your multicam source clips is fast enough to play back all of your media at once. You can check hard disk performance by choosing Final Cut Pro > Preferences and selecting “Warn when frames are dropped due to hard disk performance.” To find out if something else is causing playback issues, select “Warn when dropping frames during playback.”

You can use photos (from a still camera) in a multicam clip. If the date and time (Content Created) information matches the contents of the other angles, the photos are automatically adjusted in duration to “fill in” the angle.