Newbie Creating Music Video

How would you approach this scenario ?

Hey guys, being here in this forum is a blessing when a kind person drops some knowledge and help me walk through my editing journey. So here is the scenario , I'm making a music video. I have a bunch of clips 10 Clips , and 1 Audio file (the song) . The 10 clips are shot different locations , they are simply the singer looking into the camera and singing the Song. I want to Sync the Music file , with The clips, while adding some transitions between the 10 clips to create the final product. My question is pointed toward the Workflow. I'm making this post because I've started this project in a bizarre way that I'm pretty sure is not the most convenient. I've made 10 timelines, Each timeline contains 1 clip from the 10 clips, and each contain 1 Audio file (The original Music), and synced the video with audio in each timeline. Now I'm looking at 10 timelines and I'm thinking what to do next and my mind's gone blank ? Told you it's a bizarre way of working . I'm looking forward for your advices. Cheers.

Read up on how to use the Multicam mode - all will become clear.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Read up on how to use the Multicam mode - all will become clear.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

From which source ?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Read up on how to use the Multicam mode - all will become clear.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

From which source ?

Also the Davinci Resolve User Guide.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Read up on how to use the Multicam mode - all will become clear.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

From which source ?

Also the Davinci Resolve User Guide.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well , that seems like a good feature but I don't see how it goes with my case. I don't have a footage that was shoot with Multicam or Different Camera angles. I have 1 camera that has a loot of footage (10 clips). Actually putting them in the multicam mode makes everything very laggy, and I don't see how it helps with my case

Well , that seems like a good feature but I don't see how it goes with my case. I don't have a footage that was shoot with Multicam or Different Camera angles. I have 1 camera that has a loot of footage (10 clips). Actually putting them in the multicam mode makes everything very laggy, and I don't see how it helps with my case

OK then, & without getting deeper into multi-cam:

10 video tracks stacked on top of each other. Edit page.
Delete all excess audio tracks and only use one master.
Make cuts in video tracks to reveal the top most layer (you can drag vid handles to suit)
Work your way through the footage like this, pretty easy & non taxing.

For starters, just make cuts on all video tracks at (say) obvious beat points. Then pull back video handles to reveal the particular video lane that you want to see (as above, top-most vid shows). Once you have that under control & understand how it works, then go on & tweak the video handles to better suit the exact cues that you want, and/or add cross-fades, FX or similar.

Hope that helps.

Well , that seems like a good feature but I don't see how it goes with my case. I don't have a footage that was shoot with Multicam or Different Camera angles. I have 1 camera that has a loot of footage (10 clips). Actually putting them in the multicam mode makes everything very laggy, and I don't see how it helps with my case

Multicam is definitely the way to go for you. If things are getting laggy, also looking into the Proxy workflow.

Do the video clips have the music track in them? In other words, when you shot the footage, was the song playing on set for the singer to hear also fed to the camera?

You're work is much more difficult if it wasn't.

I don't have a footage that was shoot with Multicam or Different Camera angles. I have 1 camera that has a loot of footage (10 clips). Actually putting them in the multicam mode makes everything very laggy, and I don't see how it helps with my case

You said you've got 10 timelines, in which you've synced the audio to each of the 10 videos?

So you could now just make a Multicam from those 10 timelines - ie nesting the timelines in a Multicam. Because the 10 timelines are already synced, so too will be the multicam.

You can either keep the timelines nested in the Multicam, or, once you've placed them in the Multicam, right-click on all the timelines and choose Decompose In Place to bring in the original clips - which will remain synced.

However if you're having performance problems, you might instead want to render those 10 timelines on the Deliver page, in Single Clip mode. Render to a high-quality, low-latency format like ProRes or DNxHR. Then import those 10 newly rendered files, and put them into a Multicam clip. Again they'll already be synced, and each camera angle will have the audio.

If you do the latter, you may not need to worry about making proxies, because the ProRes/DNxHR footage is already fast for editing. If you stick to using the nested timelines (or the original clips Decomposed), then you may well want/need to make proxies for your original video files - and definitely do so if those original videos are in H264 or H265. Editing 10 x H264 or H265 will lag most systems.

Once you have a Multicam Clip, drag it onto a new Timeline on the Edit page. Double click the Multicam clip so it appears in the Source Viewer (the left viewer) , and then in the bottom left of the Source Viewer change the viewer mode to Multicam.

Here's a screenshot of a Timeline of my own, in which I'm editing a Multicam. I've highlighted the Multicam mode icon in the left viewer that needs to be selected.


To make edits, you can now click on the desired 'Angle' in the Source Viewer - I have two angles in my screenshot, labelled 'Abi' and 'Rosanna'. Yours will have 10. That will cut the clip at the playhead to the angle clicked. Or hold Shift and click to switch the angle without placing a cut. These options are also available on the right-click menu for the multicam clip on the timeline.

The control in the bottom right of the Source Viewer labelled 'Default' controls how many angles you see at once. So if you don't see all 10 angles at once, click that and choose 4 x 4 mode instead of 'Default':


Because you've put the same audio with every camera, whatever camera you switch to will have the audio for the song.

Multicam is a really fast and efficient way to edit together multiple cameras. You can hit Play and watch all 10 angles simultaneously in real time, and click angles in the Source Viewer to place cuts whenever you want to change camera. Then you can go through the cuts more slowly, refining their exact position.

As others have mentioned, there's tutorials on all this - and the manual of course.

Do the video clips have the music track in them? In other words, when you shot the footage, was the song playing on set for the singer to hear also fed to the camera?

You're work is much more difficult if it wasn't.

Nope, only lip movement , no song. Can you explain why does that make everything so difficult practically ?

Do the video clips have the music track in them? In other words, when you shot the footage, was the song playing on set for the singer to hear also fed to the camera?

You're work is much more difficult if it wasn't.

Nope, only lip movement , no song. Can you explain why does that make everything so difficult practically ?

I have been creating music videos, and basically there are a few things to note when doing these:

1. when shooting the videos, have the song playing ensuring that it can be heard on the recording, and the singer can hear it too. One option that I use, is simply to put a spare mobile phone in my shirt pocket with the song playing, whilst I am recording the video with another camera. This will ensure that the the singer is lip syncing perfectly to the song, and will also ensure that when you come to put all the footage in Resolve, its easy to sync all the footage as you literally just sync the audio wave forms (the transients) from the video footage and the song.

2. To sync the footage in resolve, one option is explained in the Resolve v17 reference Manual, "Chapter 20 Syncing Audio and Video".

3. Another option to sync the footage in Resolve, is also explained in "Chapter 42 Multicam editing". Whilst it may be slow, one option here is to reduce the number of clips that are shown in the viewer from 4x4 clips to 2x2 or 1x1 or whatever. Once in the timeline, close the multicam viewer in case you have two viewers open (so ony show one viewer, not two) - this will help performance.

Can you explain why does that make everything so difficult practically ?

If you had the music track on the footage, syncing all the footage together would be much simpler.

Can you explain why does that make everything so difficult practically ?

If you had the music track on the footage, syncing all the footage together would be much simpler.

Well I have a small question. Let's say i had the music track on the footage, there is still ambient sounds that comes from a lot of background noise from car's passing, wind , people's shouting etc.. Won't that mess with the waveform so it's not possible to sync with a click of a button ?, the footage was shot in the streets in noisy places.

It will still make the job easier even if you have to sync manually. You will be able to hear where you are in the song without guessing.

You need to replace the audio of one of your videos with a high quality recording of the song, THEN you sync the other camera angles to that one (using Mark In if Resolve can't perform an audio sync.

Then it doesn't matter what audio you have on the other tracks - you're only going to finish up with the HQ song as the audio, right?

There's lots of videos on YouTube that show how this is done. Just search for Resolve Multi Cam and you'll have lots of bedtime reading. Or viewing.

there is still ambient sounds that comes from a lot of background noise...

There are ways to handle that. The simplest way is don't record ambient.

But if it's needed for the shot, you can record ambient to one channel and the music track to another, and break that up in Resolve. Or you can record ambient to a separate recorder, like a Zoom.

If your on-set music playback is capable of generating timecode, and sending it to the cameras, you can also use that for sync instead of audio.

But, all these ideas come into play before you shoot. If you don't account for post-sync up front, you're left doing it the hard way.

there is still ambient sounds that comes from a lot of background noise...

There are ways to handle that. The simplest way is don't record ambient.

But if it's needed for the shot, you can record ambient to one channel and the music track to another, and break that up in Resolve. Or you can record ambient to a separate recorder, like a Zoom.

If your on-set music playback is capable of generating timecode, and sending it to the cameras, you can also use that for sync instead of audio.

But, all these ideas come into play before you shoot. If you don't account for post-sync up front, you're left doing it the hard way.

Very very understandable , thank you.. and for everyone who put value through this post!

As others have mentioned, there's tutorials on all this - and the manual of course.

I've followed every bit of your advice , THANK YOU , THANK YOU , THANK YOU.