Tutorial: Multicamera Editing in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

Working in the Multi-Camera Monitor

The next thing that you need to do is go to the Multi-Camera Monitor by choosing Window > Multi-Camera Monitor (Figure 9, below).

Figure 9. Opening the Multi-Camera Monitor 

When the Multi-Camera Monitor opens, you should see all your cameras there--in the project used in this example, I see all 7, as shown in Figure 10 (below). 

Figure 10. The Multi-Camera Monitor

To make the best use of my workspace, I like to place the Multi-Camera Monitor in the same spot as the Source panel, since I won't need the Source panel while I'm doing this multicam edit. To dock the panel there, click on it and drag it towards the Source panel. Once you see the rectangular preview shown in Figure 11 (below), let the mouse button go and now you will see one more tab in this set (Figure 12, below Figure 11). 

Figure 11. The rectangular preview shows that your window is ready to dock.

Figure 12. The Multi-Camera tab in the Source panel.

Now you can click on any of these cameras in the Multi-Camera Monitor and the display on the right will change accordingly. You can also maximize this panel, and click the Play icon in the Multi-Camera Monitor and all of your clips will play at the same time. In Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 you can use as many cameras as you want. You are limited only by the power of your system. 

In the Multi-Camera Monitor you can go to the Panel menu on the upper-right corner and choose Audio Follows Video (Figure 13, below). What that means is that whenever we switch cameras from Camera 1 to Camera 2, the audio will switch as well. This is generally not used, as most of the time only one camera contains the good audio and we don't want for the audio to change as we change cameras. But you always have the option if you need it. 

Figure 13. Choosing Audio Follows Video (for the rare occasion you might want to).

You can also choose to show a Preview monitor. Since we're working with both the Multi-Camera Monitor and the Program Monitor open at the same time and side-to-side we don't really need to use that option. 

Editing the Multicam Sequence

Okay, let's start editing this sequence. To begin, move your playhead all the way to the beginning and quickly test that everything is working fine (that the video and audio are in sync) by clicking on a couple of the cameras. 

To start recording, click on the Record button (Figure 14, below), and play the videos. As the video plays, all you have to do is click on the appropriate camera at the appropriate time and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 will do the rest for you—again, very much like switching a live event, but without the pressure. Note that playback may be sluggish during this process if you're working on a laptop. (Note that in the video version of this tutorial at the top of page 1, the slow playback I experienced while running the 7 clips results from the limited firepower of my laptop while simultaneously running Premiere Pro CS6, 7 separate video streams, and screencam software—always a resource hog—rather than any limitations inherent to Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.)

Figure 14. Hit the Record button to start switching cameras and recording your switches instantaneously to the timeline. 

Once you stop you can see the cuts in the Timeline (Figure 15, below). They were created automatically as you clicked on the different camera angles. You can also continue recording at this point if you want to keep editing the multicamera sequence.

Figure 15. Click the Stop button and see the cuts in the Timeline.