Sync Cannon 5D video and external audio

Question

Hi,
I'm recording video on a Cannon 5D Mark II Camera and audio separately at 30 fps.
What sort of worlflow should I use from production to editing - to make sure the sound will sync correctly?
Is there a particular frame rate the video should be shot at?
If it is shot at 23.98 fps, how can I sync the 30fps audio in Final Cut in the end?
Thanks in advance for the help!
Fernanda.

Answer 1

Maria Fernanda Affonseca wrote:
My situation is this: the director wants to shoot both 5D and 16mm footage and eventually edit them together, but she doesn't know how she wants to finish it - whether in film or video - yet.
She needs to record video and audio separately because this is a choir singing in a studio.  They need to record the sound in a studio for quality.  But the video shood take place outside.  There is no way to record the choir singing on location.
Excellent. Preplanning is what good production is based upon.
Shooting double system sound is not new, we've been doing it for, like, a century. It's all been invented, it's all been done, the entire workflow has long been perfected. Long ago. In every first time dual system shooting situation, the director thinks he/she knows more than the collected 100 years of experience of millions of sound people and the project descends into preventable chaos.
You are going to be shooting a common situation, lip-syncing to playback. "Playback" is one of the terms applied to the use of prerecorded sound or music providing the foundation or motivation during staged photography. The director rolls film, slates the take, calls for playback, and then says, "Action."
The technique is easily researched in any good library, look for film production handbooks.
Here's what you need (one version of a list, other wonks, of course, will offer a different list):
1. Studio recorded music tracks with SMPTE timecode track (look it up)
2. Playback equipment and sound delivery amplification/speakers for shooting on location that includes the ability to play the timecode track and feed it to a couple of devices
3. A timecode slate that receives timecode from the sound track playback
4. A timecode reader that will send the same timecode to all cameras
5. Timecode receivers that will record timecode to the camera's timecode track
(Timecode can either be provided by a playback device or by a master generator. There are reasons why you choose one over the other. You might record a master t/c on the timecode track and feed the playback t/c to an aux input or u-bits or use the playback t/c to jam the master t/c generator.)
That's one of the ways the big boys do this. There are many others. The fundamental idea is that everything sees the same timecode and so cannot possibly get out of sync. It's not complicated but it's not trivial. It's a simple engineering project and the equipment is all off the shelf and standardized. Your director, of course, is going to say "We cannot afford to do this the correct way and I do not believe anyone who says it is actually more expensive to attempt to fix audio sync in post instead of doing it properly in the filed, so, how can we hack this for free?"
And you will be back after your shoot to ask us how you can get this fixed.
Shooting 16mm is fun and an excellent stylization decision but it carries additional planning ad post production considerations. If you or your director have never shot fil, you should hire an experienced photographer because you don't get second chances with film and the ability to repair film in post with digital effects is not only limited, it's an expensive waste of time if the film could have been exposed properl. Deliberate post production film grading ad effects are not included in that statement because they require extensive preplanning and knowledge that, looks to me, your production staff and crew do not yet possess.
You need to know the differences between the sensor sizes of 16m cameras and DSLRs produce wildly different depth of field tables for any given focal length and focus distance. The idea that you can intercut the two media must not be based on the misperception the formats have similar looks. They are wildly different in every way.
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