Music Videos: Even though you may have shot your music video with just one camera, all the different angles and locations in the footage still have at least one common sync reference: the song. Professional music video shoots will also use a timecode reference tied along with the music track to aid with syncing footage.

Small Shoots: This relates to shoots with two or three cameras, such as an interview, a lecture, or a presentation. It’s always preferred to have all the cameras share the exact same timecode (referred to as Common Timecode) and that the cameras be exactly synced together (frequently referred to as Jam Synced). Unfortunately, this may not always be possible (due to the capability, or in this case the incapability, of the cameras being used). However, you can still provide a common sync reference point for all the cameras by using a Clapper Slate (see screenshot and discussion later in the Overview: Syncing Methods recipe).

Large Shoots: This relates to shoots of various kinds with multiple cameras, covering a large expanse, and/or not necessarily recording the same image and audio at the same time, yet all the footage needs to be synced (Grouped) together. In these instances, using a Clapper Slate is most likely not practical and you would want to make sure that all the cameras (or decks, if you’re feeding the signal to a control truck or control room) are jam-synced together so that they share identical timecode. Some examples would be: