230 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E

If you’re not going to invest in timecoded audio recording, then buy or build yourself a clapping slate board, and be sure to enlist a responsible person to handle the job of filling out and clapping the slate. When slating, make sure the slate fills the frame clearly so that you can read what it says, and make sure the clap is quick and somewhat loud, so that it will appear as a sharp spike in your audio track. (But try not to deafen your sound recordist in the process.) In addition, don’t forget that if you missed slating the head of the shot, you can always do a tail slate at the end of the shot, as long as camera and sound are still rolling.

Finally, be sure that you’ve chosen the right audio sampling rate (usually 48kHz) and that the frame rate on your audio recording device matches the frame rate on your video or film camera.

The Sound of Two Hands Clapping

As long as you can see it clearly through your viewfinder and hear it from your recording device, clapping your hands together can be a sufficient slate for synchronizing video and audio later on. You can also rely on software like Plural Eyes to help you out in post (more on that in Chapter 13, “Preparing to Edit”). Remember that even with automated synchronizing software, it can help to have slate claps and a guide track recorded with your camera’s onboard mic.

Multi-Cam Shooting

Shooting with two or more cameras at the same time was developed in the early days of live television. With at least two cameras rolling, the person controlling the broadcast feed could switch back and forth between the two on the fly. That would give the other camera a chance to find a better shot or the director the opportunity to focus on a particular performance.

The standard for televised studio shoots is four cameras, typically a wide or master and three roving close-up cameras. A technical director sits in the control room and directs the cameras via headset, using a switcher to edit on the fly. Even today, most game shows, talk shows, and sitcoms are shot this way. Sporting events and concerts are done in a similar manner as well.

There have been many technological developments that have improved the way that multicam shoots are done, but the reason for its popularity has remained the same since the 1950s: it’s better at capturing spontaneous action and requires less postproduction editing.

Multi-cam is a natural fit for sports and other unpredictable subject matter, such as reality TV shows. It’s also a natural choice for comedy. The editor’s bane of overlapping dialogue is less of a problem when there’s a second camera covering that same turn of phrase. It’s especially well suited to improvisation: both “The Office” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” take advantage of multi-cam shooting to allow for creative freedom for the cast. Even feature filmmakers like Judd Apatow use multi-cam setups at times, for all of these same reasons.

Shooting with multiple cameras is not really that hard, and as with most filmmaking technologies, there’s the big budget way and the low budget way, which we’ll discuss here.

232 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E

The second rule of multi-cam shooting is match your cameras. Here’s a quick list of what should match:

nCamera model/type

nLens or focal length

nF-stop setting/aperture

nWhite balance

nShutter speed

nFrame rate (*** this one is crucial)

nFrame size (for example, 1080, 720, and so on)

nCodec (if your camera offers more than one codec)

nAny other special image enhancement features in your camera’s settings

nFilters such as NDs, ProMist, and so on

Rules are meant to be broken, and you can decide to purposely have your cameras have different looks, but the one thing you will not want to ever have mismatched is the frame rate. Having two different frame rates creates a potential nightmare in post and serves no purpose on the set. If you want a special effect on one camera, such as the look of Super 8 film, save any messing with the frame rate for post.

Challenges of Multi-Cam Shoots

Synchronizing two or more cameras is actually the easy part. What’s a little more challenging is lighting and framing shots with multiple cameras on the set. Typically, lighting for multicam shoots is designed for 360-degree shooting. That usually means there is a grid on the ceiling with lights hanging from it to keep the lights out of your shots. Shooting outside is a little easier since you can use natural daylight and not worry about lights getting in your shots.

Framing for multi-cam is tricky as well. Typically, you want all your cameras to cut together. That means they all need to be on the same side of the stage line and that each camera needs to be shooting at an angle that is sufficiently different from the others so that cutting between them doesn’t result in a jump cut (Figure 10.21). A traditional television studio is designed similarly to a stage in a theater. The stage line is literally the line at the edge of the stage between the audience and the actors. The cameras never cross this line and as a result, there is no risk of, in this case literally, crossing the stage line. Documentaries, reality TV shows, and sporting events are less rigorous about the rules regarding the stage line, in part because the nature of what they are shooting does not fit into clean, defined areas of “stage” and “audience.” You will need to decide what rules apply to your project and frame your shots accordingly.

Also challenging for multi-cam shooting is finding a position for the boom operator so they don’t appear in any of the shots. For this reason, wireless mics are a must on multi-cam shoots.