Slating for Music Videos

[Daniel Lynn]

Hi all,

 

I just shot a music video on a digital camera that records no sound. I used insert slates to indicate the takes to the editor. I heard that he is having difficulty syncing the music to the images, to the artist's moving lips. How could I have helped him out more? While still being in MOS mode? How do you somehow sync the timecode of the music to the timecode of the camera? How do you indicate what point in the song this is? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

[Matt Kelly]

Nowadays it's really a question for the editor of the particular project. Generally, you want to have something with the song's timecode to be filmed at the beginning or end of each take. It can be a smart slate with wireless TC coming from the playback operator, or it can simply be the screen of an iPod or iPad showing the song time. In most cases a special version of the song is made that extends the ends to allow more room for slating purposes. Timecode in the camera isn't usually used.

 

But some editors seem to be content with running reference audio into the camera (via comtek) and using a plugin like Pluraleyes to automatically sync

[Daniel Lynn]

Thank you very much for your response Matt. I think an iPad will be the answer on our next project.