Sound sync of drone footage

[Vital Butinar]

Hi guys.

 

I'm preparing for a shoot of a music video and I have a problem that I think I have figured out but I'd like some input to see if I'm on the right track.

 

Some of the scenes of the music video are going to be shot with a drone. The problem is that the drone does not have sound nor does it record sound.

 

So my problem is how to sync the footage of the drone to the music and band's action.

 

Obviously there are no time codes that I could sync to because then I wouldn't have this problem.

 

A: I can just record some wide footage of the band playing and then just use it as a B roll or wide shots and it will not be visible what they are doing most of the time anyway

 

B: We can start shooting with the drone on the ground and run a second camera set up to shoot the same was as the drone start recording on both and then show a clapper board to both and let the drone take off and start the music and shoot the scene with both the drone and the camera running. Then in post sync the footage of the camera to the music and sync the drone footage clapper board to the camera footage and everything should sync up.

 

C: blow the budget and invest triple my own money so that we can rent equipment that's time coded and use it to sync the drone footage.

 

Obviously I'm not going for option C. :)

 

But I'm open to any kind of other ideas or suggestions how to do get this done.

 

Thanks for the help and best regards.

Vital

[Kyryll Sobolev]

instead of the band performing live, you can have them perform to a recording

 

then get a sync slate and connect it to your playback device, so the device which is playing the song is the master timecode.

the idea is to show the timecode on the slate to the camera.

in editing you will know exactly which part of the song is playing

 

this link here describes it quite well

https://www.bamfsound.com/how-to-music-video-playback-with-ltc-timecode/

[Max Field]

You'e holding a slate in your profile picture and aren't sure how to sync audio to a mute camera? I think you answered your own question in your original post. If drones only shot film I would understand the issue but..

[Giacomo Girolamo]

Slate?

[Brian Drysdale]

Slate = clapperboard

[Vital Butinar]

instead of the band performing live, you can have them perform to a recording

 

then get a sync slate and connect it to your playback device, so the device which is playing the song is the master timecode.

the idea is to show the timecode on the slate to the camera.

in editing you will know exactly which part of the song is playing

 

this link here describes it quite well

https://www.bamfsound.com/how-to-music-video-playback-with-ltc-timecode/

Yeah I'm sorry. That's exactly what I meant they wouldn't be performing they would be just playing to a recording and the way I have done it until now with music videos is to always have the master recording and even had a beep sound for sync at the beginning and end of the music.

 

Unfortunately the equipment we're using hasn't got a time code generator. So the only thing I can relay on is something like what I mentioned.

 

I just wasn't sure if I was thinking along the right lines.

 

Thank you guys.

 

And yes the moment I saw "slate" I remembered how it's a slate and not a clapperboard sorry about that. :)

 

Best regards.

[Bob Speziale]

Option B. Record the band with a second camera with audio in the camera. Sync the drone video to the second camera video in the editor timeline. Sync the audio in the second camera to your separately recorded audio in the editor timeline. At this point your drone video and separtely recorded audio should be in sync. If the audio from the camera doesn't sound too good you can mute it after you are all synced up and ready to export.

Edited November 14, 2018 by Bob Speziale