Hands On With Multicam in Apple Final Cut Camera and Final Cut Pro 2 for iPad

At its iPad event in May, Apple previewed an updated Final Cut Pro 2 app for video and a brand-new Final Cut Camera app for iOS and iPadOS. Using both apps, nonprofessionals can shoot video using up to four iPhone or iPad cameras simultaneously and edit the footage (i.e., create multicam productions). The Camera app is completely new, and it dovetails with Final Cut running on an iPad Pro. I got an early look at the apps to put them through their paces.

What You Need to Make Multicam Productions Using iPhones and iPads

The Final Cut Camera app is a free download on the App Store, but if you want to use the live multicam feature, you need a Final Cut Pro subscription on a recent iPad ($4.99 per month). Both the new Camera app and version of Final Cut Pro are available on the App Store starting today.

The Final Cut Camera app has less demanding requirements than the Final Cut iPad. To install Camera on an iPhone, you need iOS 17.4 or later. That means it works on any iPhone back to 2018’s XS and XR models. Final Cut Camera also runs on any iPad running iPadOS 17.4 or later (most iPads from 2018 or later), while Final Cut Pro 2 requires an M1 or later iPad running iPadOS 17.5 or later.

Shooting With Final Cut Camera

(Credit: Apple/PCMag)

You don’t have to use the multicam iPad features to use the Final Cut Camera app. You can simply use to shoot video with more controls than you get on the standard iPhone/iPad Camera app. With it, you get manual control over white balance, exposure, focus, shutter speed, ISO, resolution, and frame rate. I wasn’t able to change the video codec from HEVC to standard H.264 (or AVC), but that’s not a big problem since HEVC takes up less storage, and you can always convert it later if you need to for compatibility.

The controls slide out of view nicely when you tap the left-angle bracket button. Other options include choosing between HDR and SDR and locking the aspect ratio to vertical or horizontal. A couple of pro-level view features are also available, such as showing over- and underexposed indicators and focus peaking with red cross-hatching. Note that those last two options require an iPhone or iPad model with an A13 Bionic chip or later.

(Credit: Apple/PCMag)

If you have the Final Cut Pro for iPad app and you only plan to shoot on that device, you don’t need to install Camera on it. The iPad Final Cut app has all the same shooting controls.

Live Multicam With Final Cut Pro for iPad

To access the multicam features, you must first run Final Cut Pro 2 on an iPad. Here, you can choose the same setup configuration as on the camera app: resolution, HDR, and so on.

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After choosing those settings, tap Live Multicam in the second menu. A welcome screen tells you to connect devices running the Final Cut Camera app. To do this you have to make the iPad discoverable to record and transfer the video you shoot over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

(Credit: Apple/PCMag)

When I did this, the Final Cut Pro app found my iPhone 12 mini, but the iPhone could not connect to the iPad. That was my bad, because I hadn’t updated it to iOS 17.5.1 to get the full functionality (despite the stated requirement of 17.4 or later). So, make sure your operating systems are all up to date before trying the new multicam feature.

Can You Do Multicam With One iPad and One iPhone?

One question I had, since most people are likely to have just one iPad and one iPhone, is whether you can shoot multicam footage with only those two devices. The answer is a resounding yes, because the Final Cut Pro iPad app has the same camera capability as the Camera app itself. Having two angles is often enough to add interest to, for example, an interview, and it’s a more comfortable experience for the viewer than having many angles (in my opinion). It also gives you an excellent way to disguise edits of speaker gaps or filler words, like um, by switching angles at the cut.

You can use either the front or rear camera on either device type, but you can’t use both the selfie camera and front camera as two separate multicam angles as you can in the Filmic Pro app.

Start Multicam and Fix Settings

Once the iPhones and iPads are connected, any of the devices can start recording, but doing so on the iPad running Final Cut makes the most sense. You can also choose which device’s mic will be used for the audio track, and this is indicated on the iPad’s multicam recording screen. Here, I had to lean in toward the iPad to snap a screenshot, but it’s easy to trim this kind of footage out.

(Credit: Apple/PCMag)

In my testing with an iPhone 12 mini and a sixth-generation iPad Pro with an M2 processor, the white balance was different between the two, the latter having a cooler tint. I was wondering if I could remotely control that to get them synced up color-wise, and indeed, you can change settings for either camera being used. Once the angle’s video is in full-screen mode, you can adjust all the same settings you can on the devices themselves in the Camera app—white balance, exposure, focus, and so on. You can have all the cameras set to a specified resolution orientation frame rate ProRes file format and HDR versus SDR.

Every multicam production faces the issue of syncing the footage from separate cameras. The best video editing software usually accomplishes this by matching the soundtracks from each angle’s footage. Apple’s solution with Final Cut Pro on the iPad takes this problem completely out of the equation unless you shoot an angle on a device other than an iPhone. It automatically syncs footage shot from the connected iPhones or iPads running Final Cut Camera.

One tip is to be sure to keep the remote devices (in my case the iPhone) powered on so that the video file can transfer from it to the iPad running Final Cut. The transfer happens automatically, but you can also send clips from the satellite devices using AirDrop. Another is that, once you start the app, it stays open on your iPhone or iPad indefinitely. That way your shot won’t be interrupted, but if you forget and leave your device unattended, it drains the battery.

Cut Angles in Final Cut Pro for iPad

After shooting, when you land in the Final Cut video editing interface on the iPad, you see a source panel now populated with your newly shot multicam clip. All angles appear in one clip entry, and you can see the angles in separate smaller preview tiles on the left preview panel, pictured below. As you might expect, the angles were perfectly synced in my test footage.

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A key pointer here is that dragging that multicam clip down to your video timeline off the bat will only result in one angle playing for the whole video. You need to tap the Multicam button at the bottom of the timeline to do your angle switching.

I found it a little tricky to both remove time from the clip and switch angles at the same time, so I recommend you do cuts first and then change between angles. If you need to add an angle from another source, say you’re recording with a third mirrorless camera, you can add the clip from that and sync using sound in the Angle Editor interface (shown in the image below, which you get to by tapping Edit Angles).

(Credit: Apple/PCMag)

Not on Mac (Yet)

One surprising thing is that the multicam function using the Camera app on multiple devices doesn’t work with Final Cut Pro on the Mac—only on a recent iPad.

Apple hasn’t announced it, but I have a hunch that the multicam feature will be compatible with Mac at some point. We’re still waiting for Final Cut Pro version 10.8 for macOS that was announced at the May iPad event.

In addition to the existing tricks in Final Cut for iPad—Live Drawing, Scene Removal Mask, Auto Crop, Titles, and Voice Isolation—Version 2 adds new content such as titles, effects, backgrounds, and soundtracks, as well as the ability to store project media on external storage. And you get the standard cutting, overlay, transitions, and filters common to all video editing software. You also get a nice selection of audio editing tools, including noise reduction and acoustic effects like Cathedral, Robot, and Delay.

Editing video on the iPad app has the benefit of letting you work off-site and perform actions directly on the screen with your finger (though I’d still recommend attaching a keyboard for editing convenience). With it, you can do the lion’s share of what you’d do on a desktop video editor. And the new multicam feature will appeal to many vloggers and YouTubers who want to up their video-editing game.

For more video editing tips, check out our 10 tips for editing home videos like a pro.

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