I have signed on to provide production audio for a low-budget Indy film (where, frankly, most of us are fairly inexperienced) and have two questions with regard to the best way to provide sync sound and the frame rate settings of the TC.

The Director intends to shoot with one Cannon 5D Mark III and two Cannon 5D Mark II SLR cameras.

I have come to realize that if any shared timecode is to be used it may need to be via audio timecode recorded to the camera's audio track (in this case, originating from the Sound Devices 774T and an Ambient Lockit Box with the aid of a Lockit Buddy that will condition the signal to something the cameras can manage in terms of level).

As I understand it, the video editing program (Adobe Premiere in this case) can take the recorded audio TC from the camera and "read" it as timecode for editing.

My second question may be much more of a novice question: With regard to the proper frame rate settings, I am not sure yet if they will be using 29.97 ND or 23.976 ND, I assume that which ever they use I will set the 744T's TC to match. I will also jam a Time Code Slate as a reference incase there are issues. My audio sample rate will be 24/48K.

Can anyone make suggestions with regard to this scenario?

Alternately, It has been suggested to bag timecode altogether and rely upon the slate and a 3rd party plug-in such as Pluralize to sync.

I would be grateful for any suggestions. We are in pre-production and plan to start shooting in October.

Ouch. I hate DSLR. Using them as movie cameras is always a technical compromise one after another, as you are destined to find out the hard way! (Just my opinion)

As for frame rate, what in blazes are you doing with 29.97 NDF -- that is standard video speed. You should be shooting in 23.976 (and there is no such thing as 23.976 DF or NDF, it only comes non-drop so you can lose the suffix).

I have not played with the Ambient Lock-It toys, so no opinion. I would suggest trying it all out and seeing how it works. (Shoot some tests and try importing it all into Premiere.)

If you want to go simple, just use the 744T and the Denecke slate. Time code can be added to picture when it is imported; and then just tell it all to sync to the audio timecode.

Plural Eyes works great. Make sure you use the version for Premiere. Use some sort of radio transmitter to send a clean copy of the soundtrack to each of the cameras directly (do not rely on the camera's open air mics).

Hopefully, some other readers will chime in on this and provide you with what has worked for them in the past.

My personal experience with the 5D is very limited, so I have to step aside on this one.

Thanks for your comments. I especially like the simple approach (Slate plus scratch audio to camera's for Pluraleyes). This was also confirmed by a fairly lively discussion at JWSound

Thanks Again!