I’ve reviewed so many Love Cinema Vol. 6 shows and I’m so close to the artists in the band that anything I say is going to be incredibly biased. Instead of reviewing the show, I attempted to shoot a multi-camera video of the event to capture the entire set in all its glory.
Here’s how I pulled it off using a smartphone and GoPro two cameras. I attached a GoPro 4 Silver to the ceiling via a Manfrotto Super Clamp and arm that I controlled with my iPhone 7+. That camera was stationary and put at it’s widest setting so I didn’t miss any of the action on stage. My video settings were 1080p, 59.94fps, because I knew I didn’t have the computer power to edit 4k video.
The second camera that I used to move back and forth in front of the stage with was a LG V20 mounted on a Shoulderpod. I used the V20 because it’s got two cameras, like the iPhone, but one of them has a wide-angle lens that allowed me to switch from wide to tight without compromising the image. The V20 also has a quad DAC for studio quality sound recording and a ton of manual controls.
Here’s the problem. While the GoPro shot the whole show at a steady 59.94fps, the V20 shot the set in 59.94fps variable frame rate and split the set into three 20 minute files. Even worse, each file had a different frame rate. So my files were shot at 59.24, 59.60 and 59.83 and that meant that the lips would never be in sync between the GoPro files and the V20 files. After a doing a ton of digging and hair pulling, I discovered that you can transcode variable files in Handbrake at 59.94 and the resulting files would match up to the non-variable files. It took a few extra hours but it worked.
I imported all the files into Adobe Premiere Pro and cut between the cameras in real time using the multi-camera editing tool. Since I didn’t use a clapper at the start of the tape, I relied on Mike Ricra’s drumming patterns to manually sync up the vocal tracks. In the end, I also used the audio track from the stationary GoPro as the main audio for the video. While the V20 did a great job capturing audio, it fluctuated as it got closer and farther from the amps. Next time I’ll just pull sound from the sound board using the V20 and shoot the set with two GoPros.
Enjoy the video and feel free to ask any questions about the recording process in the comments.