Intro to Editing Video with Multiple DSLR Cameras

In this tutorial, we are going to walk through an entire multi-camera DSLR video edit featuring 2 cameras and an independent audio track in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. We will be editing and creating the final the Part I – 10 Tips for Multi-Camera DSLR Production video which you should have already seen at this point.

This video is designed for SLR Lounge and Lin and Jirsa video production staff to teach our video editing process from start to finish. Again, we thought it might be useful to everyone else, so we are making the video public.

Keep in mind that this is our production workflow based on our needs and desired quality, not based on broadcast television editing standards. For example, color grading for broadcast television will use much more extensive and specialized tools (including the use of Vectorscopes and broadcast calibrated monitors).

As mentioned in the video, we primarily use an RGB Curve and the 3 Way Color Grader (when needed) to create our overall look since it is more simple for our staff (who are photographers to begin with) to learn and adopt.

In short, understand that there will be differences in workflow and editing depending on your desired output and use. This is our editing workflow based on our needs and use (which is primarily for web and computer use), which we thought we would make public in case it helps anyone else out. Enjoy!

Our Video Editing Workflow

This how-to guide to video editing is presented from start to finish. So set a bit of time aside because it is over 1 hour long. In this video editing tutorial below, we we will be going through the following steps:

1. Syncing Video and Audio Tracks – Before we can begin cutting, we need to sync all of our video and audio tracks in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. Rather than doing this manually, we are going to use Plural Eyes, a magical piece of software that is going to do all the heavy lifting. For Plural Eyes to work properly, it is important to remember that you will need decently clean audio from each video and audio source. Otherwise, Plural Eyes will have a hard time syncing the tracks.

2. Rough Cut – The second step in our video editing tutorial is to create what we call the “Rough Cut.” The Rough Cut is going to involve cutting out all of the junk and outtakes in order to essentially create a rough draft of our final video. The Rough Cut still hasn’t been finalized in terms of audio and video transitions, it is just a rough draft so to speak.

3. Cutting the Transitions – Once we have the rough cut completed, we will continue editing our video by cutting and polishing all of the audio and video transitions. With each clip transition we need to switch camera angles and refine the audio transition to make the video feel seamless. After this step, we are ready to move on to the polishing of our video.

4. Adding B-Roll, Titles and Graphics – After we complete editing the transitions, we are ready to move on to adding in our B-Roll (supporting footage) as well as our titles and graphics where applicable. During this phase of our video editing process, we are essentially adding in all of the additional video and graphics that will support and add additional value to the content of the video.

5. Color Grading and Effects – Color grading and adding effects is the last step in our video editing tutorial prior to rendering out our final video. We save this process for last since adding effects onto clips will cause Adobe Premiere to slow down. If you have a powerful MPE (Mercury Playback Engine) enabled video card, then you can add and edit effects in real time while watching the preview playback. Having an MPE enabled video card is extremely useful (and really a must have) if you are doing a lot of video editing.

6. Finalizing and Rendering the Final Video – Lastly, if needed we will add in the necessary bumpers to our final video and then render out our final video to an MP4 using the .H264 Codec since it offers great compression in relation to its quality. At this point, we can watch the video on any computer, or upload to Vimeo/Youtube.

Hope this video was helpful to the community. If so, please help us spread the word and share with your friends. SLR Lounge and Lin and Jirsa production staff, please take this tutorial to heart and memorize ;)

Watch the Multi-Camera DSLR Video Editing Tutorial