How to Edit a Multicam Music Video in Final Cut Pro X

After having successfully shot, converted and imported your music video footage (see my blog post with some shooting tips and another one on converting/importing video footage into Final Cut Pro X), we’re now ready to start editing the video.

1. Let’s begin by selecting all the video clips you need plus the corresponding audio track in the Event browser.

2. Right-mouse click the selections and choose the “New Multicam Clip” option.

3. After the processing is done, simply drag the new multicam clip to the timeline. In the timeline, right-mouse click the multicam clip and select “Open in Angle Editor“.

4. In the Angle Editor I would first click on the monitor icon right above the audio track in order to synchronize the video clips accordingly later on. This step is done by selecting each video clip, clicking the arrow icon above them and selecting “Sync Selection to Monitoring Angle” (see the images below).

5. If the software can’t match and sync the audio signals for some video clips, you’ll need to do it manually by typing P to activate Select tool and dragging the video clip until it matches perfectly with the audio signal of your main audio track. You can make this task easier by dropping markers (by typing M).

6. Exit the Angle Editor and make a preliminary edit simply by clicking the angle windows during the playback. To do so you’ll need to enable the Angle Viewer by clicking on the switch button and selecting “Show Angle Viewer” or typing SHIFT COMMAND 7, as seen on the image below.

7. Up next, right-mouse click the multicam track and select your stereo audio track under “Active Audio Track“.

Then you’ll need to specify to adjust/edit video only from now on, so that the audio track stays the same. You can achieve this simply by selecting the Film icon in the Angle Viewer.

8. Finally, to fine-tune your multicam edit, use the Trim tool (type T) as seen on the image below.

A great tip worth knowing, in case you’d like to change a whole section once your preliminary edit is done, is to select that section, press alt + click on the desired angle in the angle viewer. Instead of making additional cuts, this will simply change the entire section with the selected angle.

That’s it – you’ve just wrapped up your first multicam video editing! To further simplify and speed up your editing process, this Vimeo Video School’s tutorial will show you some useful keyboard shortcuts to use on your Final Cut Pro X projects.

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