Pluraleyes

[bellabell]

Does anyone know how to sync audio in FCP using pluraleyes without making all those separate sequences? Is there a way to make subclips vs. a sequence? It may be easier on the front end, but it can become a sequence nightmare if you have a long project with a lot of syncing.

Any other recommends for syncing DSLR audio/video?

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

I know a lot of people use it, but my team just doesn't see the point. We still sync every take manually from the slate. A ton of run and gun stuff with no slate (if that's what you do) I guess I see the utility, but for narrative it just makes no sense to me.

 

[bellabell]

I know a lot of people use it, but my team just doesn't see the point. We still sync every take manually from the slate. A ton of run and gun stuff with no slate (if that's what you do) I guess I see the utility, but for narrative it just makes no sense to me.

I think I'm with you on this one. Thank god we used the tried and true hand clap. I have spent more time trying to set pluraleyes to our workflow that I could have been done with the manual sync by now. Duh, I hate trial and error.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

I mean hell it's only worked for what the 80 years we've had the "talkies".
Again, if you have 900 hours of un-slated doc footage, OK, I see that. For a narrative film where you are dealing with limited takes of a given shot, only one of which is gonna wind up on the timeline.... seems like using more tool than the job requires to me.

 

[ItDonnedOnMe]

I can't imagine working without pluraleyes, even though most of what I do is narrative shorts. This is the workflow I use that's worked well for hundreds of hours of synced footage over the past few years:

1. batch convert footage to ProRes.
2. Import all of your footage and audio to FCP
3. select all footage and drag it into a new sequence
4. select all audio and drag it into tracks 3 & 4 in the same sequence
5. run pluraleyes - use "clips are in chronological order", "level audio", "Single output sequence" and "enable multiprocessing" options
6. Scan through the synced sequence and check to make sure there's no clips that failed to sync - it occasionally happens when the camera audio is too bad to make the match. If that's the case you may need to manually sync those.
7. use the forward select tool to select all audio from tracks 3&4, then drag it up to tracks 1&2 (replacing the original audio)
8. razor blade the audio tracks at the beginning and end of each video clip and delete the unused audio segments
9. go down the sequence, selecting each matched video & audio clip & hit apple-L to link them together
10. select all clips on the timeline and drag them into a new bin to create single synced clips for editing.

I know it sounds like a lot of steps but it's really not, and once you've got the flow down you can run through it and sync hours of footage in just a few minutes. You'd have to do most of the same steps even if you did the sync manually, but it's dramatically faster in my experience.

You can also try the "Replace audio" option in pluraleyes, which largely eliminates steps 6-9 in the workflow - I just find it a little cleaner to manually trim the audio and it doesn't take long to do.

 

[bellabell]

I can't imagine working without pluraleyes, even though most of what I do is narrative shorts. This is the workflow I use that's worked well for hundreds of hours of synced footage over the past few years:

1. batch convert footage to ProRes.
2. Import all of your footage and audio to FCP
3. select all footage and drag it into a new sequence
4. select all audio and drag it into tracks 3 & 4 in the same sequence
5. run pluraleyes - use "clips are in chronological order", "level audio", "Single output sequence" and "enable multiprocessing" options
6. Scan through the synced sequence and check to make sure there's no clips that failed to sync - it occasionally happens when the camera audio is too bad to make the match. If that's the case you may need to manually sync those.
7. use the forward select tool to select all audio from tracks 3&4, then drag it up to tracks 1&2 (replacing the original audio)
8. razor blade the audio tracks at the beginning and end of each video clip and delete the unused audio segments
9. go down the sequence, selecting each matched video & audio clip & hit apple-L to link them together
10. select all clips on the timeline and drag them into a new bin to create single synced clips for editing.

I know it sounds like a lot of steps but it's really not, and once you've got the flow down you can run through it and sync hours of footage in just a few minutes. You'd have to do most of the same steps even if you did the sync manually, but it's dramatically faster in my experience.

You can also try the "Replace audio" option in pluraleyes, which largely eliminates steps 6-9 in the workflow - I just find it a little cleaner to manually trim the audio and it doesn't take long to do.

I see your workflow, but it just doesn't seem efficient for what we're doing. You have many sequences and then condense it to one sequence and then put it back to a synced bin. We are working on a feature documentary with 2TB of footage, multiple interviews in multiple languages (channel 1 with the original language, channel 2 with the interpreter). I was hoping there was a secret to keeping the synced files in their original bin structure.

I will try your method on a live action. It sounds like it would work well with that.

 

[ItDonnedOnMe]

Ok, got it - so you've already sorted all of your material into separate bins and want to keep it that way? Unfortunately I'm not sure there's a way to do that, at least not automatically. I have used this workflow on a documentary, with over 100 hours of source footage (including many multi-camera & multi-audio source shoots) totaling over 8TB of files, and it was still the fastest way to sync things - in fact I couldn't imagine any practical way to do it otherwise considering the amount of source material. I just ran through the sequence about 20 times, roughly once for each shooting day/location which is how I'd organized the source bins.

 

[PaulGriffith]

I love pluraleyes. I synced over 100 files spread over 30 layers in about a minutes with plural eyes a few months back. Even on the smaller stuff, it just makes it all so easy. I had to manually sync about 20 or so clips this morning on a different system and it felt like wasted time, aggrevating.

Not sure how it runs in FCP, but in premiere you actually export an XML then reimport the synced XML. I'll usually drop all the footage/audio into a single timeline in order then when I reimport, delete the original and backup the synced sequence that I use as a master to pull from. From there I'll delete any extra audio tracks and copy and paste into whatever sequences.

I've bought a lot of software over the years, pluraleyes has been the biggest return of investment by far just in time saved. Your time is worth a $ value. Even at $1 an hour it pays back fast enough, at a freelance rate it'll pay back in a project it two and then it's money, or rather time in your pocket from there.

 

[Alcove Audio]

If you are going to be handing off the audio post to a sound editor do not delete the original camera sound. Most of us do not 100% trust these sync programs and like the camera sound as a sync check. Yeah, it's a little bit more of a hassle when you're editing (just mute the channels of the audio clips) but your SSE and dialog editor will love you for it.

 

[bellabell]

I love pluraleyes. I synced over 100 files spread over 30 layers in about a minutes with plural eyes a few months back. Even on the smaller stuff, it just makes it all so easy. I had to manually sync about 20 or so clips this morning on a different system and it felt like wasted time, aggrevating.

Not sure how it runs in FCP, but in premiere you actually export an XML then reimport the synced XML. I'll usually drop all the footage/audio into a single timeline in order then when I reimport, delete the original and backup the synced sequence that I use as a master to pull from. From there I'll delete any extra audio tracks and copy and paste into whatever sequences.

I've bought a lot of software over the years, pluraleyes has been the biggest return of investment by far just in time saved. Your time is worth a $ value. Even at $1 an hour it pays back fast enough, at a freelance rate it'll pay back in a project it two and then it's money, or rather time in your pocket from there.

I've never tried it in premiere but it sounds like their workflow is better. Ive had to relearn on premiere recently as one of the studios I contract at has switched over. I'm liking it so far except for masking.

 

[bellabell]

If you are going to be handing off the audio post to a sound editor do not delete the original camera sound. Most of us do not 100% trust these sync programs and like the camera sound as a sync check. Yeah, it's a little bit more of a hassle when you're editing (just mute the channels of the audio clips) but your SSE and dialog editor will love you for it.

Will do. My poor audio guy has his work cut out for him.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Why not talk to him/her? Ask what s/he wants/prefers.

 

[bellabell]

Why not talk to him/her? Ask what s/he wants/prefers.

We have had an extensive conversation and he wants what you had said, original audio in a muted track in case he needs to use any ambient sounds. I was just asking about workflow with plural eyes for organization. I think everyone has answered my questions. There's a lot of knowledgable people here.

 

[ItDonnedOnMe]

Not sure how it runs in FCP, but in premiere you actually export an XML then reimport the synced XML. I'll usually drop all the footage/audio into a single timeline in order then when I reimport, delete the original and backup the synced sequence that I use as a master to pull from.

That's the way it works with FCPX now. In FCP7 and earlier you launch pluraleyes and it gives you a list of available sequences to choose from the current open project, and then when it finishes synching it creates a new sequence in the project with the tracks all aligned, so there's no need to import or export anything. Having used both I prefer the old FCP way of doing it as it eliminates a few steps, but the end result is the same.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

Admittedly we are Luddites...

Probably 80% (or more) of our footage doesn't ever get synced at all.

I know I want shot X to be next. The script notes say take 4 is the best take of shot X, view shot X Take 4 outside the editor with camera audio to confirm it is a good take, drop shot X take 4 on the time line, sync it manually in about 12 seconds, mute the camera audio, done.

 

[bellabell]

Admittedly we are Luddites...

Probably 80% (or more) of our footage doesn't ever get synced at all.

I know I want shot X to be next. The script notes say take 4 is the best take of shot X, view shot X Take 4 outside the editor with camera audio to confirm it is a good take, drop shot X take 4 on the time line, sync it manually in about 12 seconds, mute the camera audio, done.

Frankensteining it can be magical