basically when I am shooting interviews (or any video for that matter) it is for my website (http://www.brianhirschfeldphotography) and my youtube channel (BHPhotoWeekly) and I am generally shooting my Nikon D4 and Nikon D3s for these shoots. Generally I have had one mic on one camera and had that be all the audio and then try and have Final Cut Pro X sync them but this doesn't seem to be the best system. I am considering upgrading to some lavalier mic's and a new shotgun mic but don't know how I can get all of this audio to sync up in Final Cut Pro X.
I read this article about a device that does time coding (http://www.freshdv.com/2011/01) I don't know how effective this is or if there is a better quality device that does this. Any help would be appreciated. Also Microphone recommendations are welcome.
As other people mentioned the best way is a shot list and a clap board.
We used the ipad clap board but it takes too long and is much slower than just using an old fashion slam.
We routinely run two or three cameras and depending on the sound tech, always try to have sound go into every camera, if only for scratch purposes, but nothing insures ease of syncing than a clap board and keeping a shot description will save you a lot of time when you get to the editorial process.
One thing we've noticed when shooting non professional talent, is to let the camera run long. Stopping at the end of each blooper and resetting tends to tense the talent up, when they hear Camera a rolling, camer b rolling, camera c rolling, ACTION! The talent will tense up like the start of a race, so If someone blows a line I always just keep running (if possible), tell them not to worry your doing great, let's just try pick it up here at this point ______ and enjoy yourself.
But back to syncing, other than genlock the easiest way to sync is with a clapboard and I make sure that the board is in the front of every shot before we run the cameras.
At least that's the plan.
IMO
BC