… for Apple Final Cut Pro X

Tip #1790: Multi-camera Screen Recording Tips

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Mulitple images don’t require multicam.

Recently, I’ve started recording my webinars using two sources: my screen and a camera pointed at my face. Why? Because I wanted to give myself a new editing challenge… and it’s good to see the person speaking. Here’s what I learned in editing these.

Telestream Screenflow is software I’ve used for years to record my webinars. It provides high-quality (ProRes 4444), is color accurate and easily exports to Final Cut for editing. (No, I don’t edit in Screenflow.)

Screenflow now has the ability to record both the screen and a webcam at the same time. So, while I don’t use my webcam for my live events, I do include video of myself in the download versions of my training. Telestream exports my video already scaled and positioned where I need it.

Here are three tips that I’ve learned in editing this extra camera:

1. The camera is consistently recorded 2 frames out of sync with the audio. This is easy to fix by sliding the camera clip two frames earlier. To make sure I don’t move it back I monitor the timecode of all clips in the timeline using Window > Source Timecode (see screen shot).
2. Because both clips need to be visible at the same time, I don’t create a multicam clip, but, instead, stack the clips vertically. Then, I enable or disable my on-screen video as needed.
3. Because the video is from my webcam, I do all color correction for this clip before I start editing. That way, I don’t need to color grade each individual clip when editing is complete.

I like the results and it doesn’t add that much more time to the edit.