It has been a few weeks since I last talked about shooting video on the Canon 5D Mark II. I have been putting off this post due to the fact I have been working on editing the footage that I shot of Syl Arena for the Speedliters Guide DVD that he and I are working on.

I knew when I was starting on this project that I would have to change the way I worked with video, compared to working with DVCAM and HDV formats that I was used to working on. First was the shift from tape to a solid-state media, which means I no longer have a tape backup of my footage that I have shot. Since I am not capturing off of tape, I need all that footage on the CF cards put on the computer, so I need more hard drive space. But what I found was that the tape issue would not be close to the biggest problem I would run into.

The second and biggest issue that I have run into is the syncing of the audio and separate cameras that we used in shooting this project. At most times, I had two, and sometimes three 5D’s recording at the same time. No matter what type of video format your are recording to, the more cameras you are using, the more problems you may have when you are working post and editing your footage. This is where the 5D shows it’s amateur side of recording video. Every other type of video camera lays down time code, so you can keep track of when events happen and also help with capturing footage. The other plus is you can set the time code to keep running, even when you are not recording. This allows for multiple cameras to be set to the same time code, so you can switch between multiple camera angles with little problems. Since the 5D has no time code, you can sync up cameras as easy as normal video cameras. In fact it very hard to sync up multiple cameras.

Adding to my problems in post, we also recorded audio with another device, since the 5D does a poor job with that as well. That is the only two real cons I can find with this camera.

So for some shoots, I have a total of 4 devices to sync up, with no real solution, other than the use of a clapper, which would be fine if all the cameras and audio devices started at the same time, which they didn’t. This has really put me in the weeds when it comes to editing.

The good thing is that I have found a great solution to this problem, but before I go through that, I do want to point out a few things that should be done to help with this process.

The first thing is that there is no such thing as too much pre-production, which is planning for the non-video lingo speaking public. Have at least a script or a shoot schedule to you know what you need to shoot and when the camera needs to roll. A plan for pre-production is your road map that will carry you through post. Even if the plan is dumped halfway through the post process, you still have some map to veer off from.

Second is test out your gear before you shoot. Syl and I had little time to work with the gear before we started shooting, so getting down a workflow was a bit of a challenge. This of course is an ongoing project, so we have worked through those issues. But you may be using rental gear or something that you have borrowed from a friend. If the gear is relatively new to you, take some time and test out the equipment while you are still working in your pre-production steps.

So what did I do to solve my problems with my gear? Well after a few weeks of banging my head against a wall with this syncing issue I found my own personal editing savior, a program called PluralEyes.

PluralEyes analyzes the audio from your separate devices and syncs them into your timeline. No matter how many devices you have on the timeline, PluralEyes makes quick work of the syncing problems and allows you more time to craft your edit.

Now there are a few downsides to using PluralEyes. It only works on Final Cut Pro, so if you are an Avid or Adobe, you cannot use this product.

The other issues with PluralEyes are more in the realm of how your shoot and edit. I found that when I was shooting my footage, I still needed to have good audio on my external audio recorder as well as my cameras. If you are not recording audio to the camera, or the audio is very low, PluralEyes cannot sync footage unless there are audio tracks for each video track. You may want to attach an external mic to the 5D so you can get good audio to match up to the other cameras and audio gear.

I did also find that PluralEyes did have trouble in windy conditions. The amount of noise going through the mics must confuse the program, but this also might have to do with the fact I had the mic level on the audio recorder turned down too low, so that may have caused the confusion.

I do think that you should try to keep your audio recordings and video recordings the same, so when you are rolling audio, you are also rolling video. This is a bit tougher than it sounds, because if you are doing a tutorial series, you may just need one or the other. If that is the case, make sure to speak into the mic of either device so you have reference when you get into the edit phase of the project.

You should also use some sort of clapper or white board and use it to write down takes and scenes. Make sure you also say what you are recording into the mics of both devices, so you can use the audio to help match up in case PluralEyes can’t. And if possible try to record and stop video and audio at the same time; it will help keep confusion down in the edit.

Speaking of clips, I notice the best way to use PluralEyes is try to keep things small. I was hopping that I could just drag and drop all of my audio and video from a days worth of shooting and watch a blue bar go across the screen with everything put into it’s place once the process was done, I was very wrong. I don’t know if it was because of the quality of my audio, the size of my video files or the fragmentation of audio and video files, but it just didn’t work. Since we would roll audio for a long period of time, I would just try to sync my video to these large audio files, once at a time.

The last major issue with PluralEyes is how it works with and delivers you content. If you have little to no experience editing video, this might not make much sense, but if you are familiar with editing, this may be an issue.

If you have set in and out points and brought content to a timeline for editing and then you expect for PluralEyes to help you to sync up your audio track for the clips you have selected, you are out of luck. PluralEyes helps sync up your source material on a timeline; you cannot have any in and out points marked on any of the clips. So you will have sequences that contain the original material on, and then have to cut and paste clips from these source timelines to your edit timelines. While this is not a big deal for me, some editors will hate this, because it breaks a traditional workflow that has worked for years. No matter how much of a pain it may be, it is still better than trying to match several video and audio clips yourself.

This type of solution is going to be a part of our workflows with DSLRs as long as Canon, Nike, and others, do not have good on board audio recording and controls. That is the bad news, the good news is that heavy pre-production and utilities like PluralEyes will see us through this process until something, and it always does, comes along.