A Premiere Pro multicam interview workflow: sync, cut, switch, flatten.
Sync the cameras and the recorder into one multicam source sequence, cut the interview from the transcript, switch angles last and flatten never. What an XML brings back in.
A Premiere Pro multicam interview workflow has four parts. Select the camera files and the recorder in the Project panel and choose Create Multi-Camera Source Sequence, synced by Audio. Make a sequence from it with the recorder as its audio. Cut the interview from a transcript. Then switch angles in the Multi-Camera view, and flatten late or never. Decide what is said first, which camera shows it second.
Why the multicam source sequence is the unit of work
An interview shoot reaches the Project panel as several files describing one conversation: a wide, a tight, maybe a third camera on the interviewer, and a lav and boom on a separate recorder. Premiere Pro's container for that is the multicam source sequence: every source a named angle, synced once, treated by the timeline as a single clip you can cut like any other and switch at any point. The glossary entry on multicam and sync clips covers the containers.
Editors who skip the container pay twice: every trim made on two stacked cameras, or an early flatten that throws away the angle switch, the one thing that hides a shortened answer without a jump cut.
The other mistake is order. People open the Multi-Camera view on day one and start switching cameras on a two-hour interview nobody has decided how to cut. Choose the lines first, from text. Then choose the camera.
How do you set up a multicam interview in Premiere Pro?
- Name the cameras before you sync. In the Project panel, rename each camera's clips to something you will recognize in the switcher: "Wide", "Tight", "Recorder". The multicam dialog can name its angles from clip names, and two cameras with default file names are hard to tell apart at step seven.
- Select the interview's clips and create the source sequence. Select every file from the interview, the recorder's audio-only files included. Right-click and choose Create Multi-Camera Source Sequence. Name it after the interview, set Camera Names to Use Clip Names, and leave the Sequence Preset on Automatic so it takes the cameras' frame rate.
- Set Synchronize Point to Audio. Audio matches waveforms, and since every device heard the same room, it needs no slate. Timecode is frame-exact and right only when every device was jammed to one clock. In Points is the fallback for a source with no usable audio: mark the same clap on each clip first. Click OK.
- Open the source sequence and settle the audio. Right-click the new multicam source sequence and choose Open in Timeline. Each angle sits on its own track. Check that the waveforms line up; if one angle is off, slip it here and the fix carries into every sequence that uses it. Then mute the camera scratch tracks and leave the recorder on, so every cut from this clip plays the lav.
- Make the editing sequence. Right-click the multicam source sequence in the Project panel and choose New Sequence From Clip. It lands on the timeline as one clip with the multicam badge. If the clip is not already switchable, right-click it and choose Multi-Camera > Enable.
- Cut the content from the transcript, not the pictures. This is the long step and it is a text job. Run Speech to Text on the sequence, read the whole interview, decide which answers stay and where the cuts fall, and build the selects in story order. How to transcribe an interview in Premiere Pro offline covers the Text panel.
- Switch angles in the Multi-Camera view on the assembled cut. Open the Program Monitor's settings menu and choose Multi-Camera, or press Shift+0. Turn off Multi-Camera Audio Follows Video so the recorder stays put. Play, and click an angle or press its number key to cut to it at the playhead. To change a segment's camera without adding a cut, right-click it and choose Multi-Camera and the angle.
- Flatten last, if at all. Where two neighbors show the same angle, delete the edit point to join them. Multi-Camera > Flatten turns each segment into a plain clip of the angle it shows and takes the switch away for good. Do it only when something downstream cannot read a multicam clip, and duplicate the sequence first.
What does an XML carry back into Premiere Pro?
This is where Premiere Pro differs from the other two editors, and it is worth being plain about. Premiere Pro imports Final Cut Pro 7 XML, a format that describes a sequence of clips that each point at one media file, with in and out points, clip names, markers and notes. It has no way to describe a multicam source sequence. So whatever tool makes your transcript and selects outside Premiere Pro, what comes back is a sequence of single-camera cuts in story order, not a switchable multicam clip. The dialog and the relinking are in how to import XML into Premiere Pro.
That is less of a loss than it sounds, because the hard decisions are the cuts. The imported sequence is the paper edit: which lines, in which order, with the words of each select in its marker note. Marrying it to the multicam sequence takes one pass.
Open Window > Markers with the imported sequence active and the notes read as a log of the cut. With the multicam sequence transcribed in step six, search the Text panel's transcript for the first words of each select, drag across the line, and Premiere Pro sets the In and Out on the multicam sequence. Insert that range into a new sequence, move to the next note, and the cut rebuilds on the multicam clip with the angles still live. Trim the breath back onto each edit afterward.
In Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve the container itself round-trips through FCPXML, and the multicam guides for those two cover that.
Doza Assist is a local-first AI editing assistant that runs the finding pass before the Premiere Pro timeline exists. Drop in one camera's files from the interview, the angle with the cleanest audio; they are read in place and transcribed on your Mac with every speaker labeled by AI Speaker ID. Read the whole interview as paragraphs, click any word to land on its frame, ask AI Chat for the strongest lines on a topic and get playable, timecoded clip cards back, and mark the keepers with the 5-color highlighter. Set "Edit in" to Premiere Pro in the project header and Export writes a Final Cut Pro 7 XML with the cuts on V1 and A1/A2, clip names, markers and your notes, which you import and rebuild on the multicam sequence as above. Nothing uploads.
Common questions
Should I sync a multicam interview by audio or by timecode in Premiere Pro?
Audio, unless every camera and the recorder were jammed to one timecode source. Audio sync matches the waveforms each device recorded of the same room and needs no slate or shared clock. Timecode is frame-exact but trusts the clocks, so free-running cameras drift. In Points, with a clap marked on each clip, is the fallback when a source has no usable audio.
Why does the audio change when I switch cameras?
Multi-Camera Audio Follows Video is on, so each camera switch also switches to that camera's scratch audio. Turn it off in the Program Monitor's Multi-Camera view, and mute the camera tracks inside the multicam source sequence so only the recorder plays.
When should I flatten a multicam clip in Premiere Pro?
As late as possible, and often never. Flatten turns every segment into an ordinary clip of the angle it shows and removes the ability to switch. Premiere Pro renders and archives a multicam sequence without flattening, so do it only when a downstream tool or collaborator cannot read the container, and keep a duplicate of the sequence from before.
Can a transcript tool send a multicam sequence back to Premiere Pro?
Not as a multicam sequence. Final Cut Pro 7 XML describes clips that each point at one media file and has no element for a multicam source sequence. What comes back is a sequence of single-camera cuts with clip names, markers and notes, the paper edit you rebuild on the multicam clip. In Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve the container round-trips through FCPXML.
Doza Assist transcribes every interview locally, finds the strongest moments across all of them, then sends your chosen ranges to Final Cut, Premiere, or Resolve. Your video never leaves your Mac.
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