Working with multi-cam composite reel

A composite reel shows you multiple camera angles of the same moment into a tiled grid.

When you add footage synced with Reduct's timeline sync and multicam feature to a reel, it becomes a part of the reel as a reel item. You can configure the composite reel item to your liking and in this article I will show how that exactly works.

đź’ˇNote:

The feature is available for all the Professional and Enterprise users who already have multi-cam enabled. Please reach out to us at support@reduct.video if you need access to it.

Recognizing a composite reel item by tiled thumbnail

A composite item looks a little different from a standard reel item:

  1. Tiled thumbnail. Instead of a single frame, the thumbnail shows every camera angle laid out in the grid that will appear in the finished video.
  2. Composite indicator. A small grid icon appears in the item's controls. Hovering it shows "Composite reel item with N sources." Click it to open the configuration options.
  3. Multi-cam link. A link reading "… across N synced multi-cam recordings" opens the synced multicam view for these sources in a new tab, so you can review all the angles together.
  4. Transcript from the primary source. The words shown in the item's body come from one source — the primary source — and this is also the transcript and captions that ship with the exported video. See Choosing the primary source below.

Opening the configuration options

There are two ways to open the configuration:

1. Click the composite indicator (the grid icon).

2. Click the three-dot kebab (︙)menu on towards the right of the reel item and choose Configure composite item.

The Configure multi-cam composite dialog

The dialog has a preview of the grid layout at the top and a row for each source below it. From here you can pick the primary source, reorder the grid, mute individual angles, and remove sources.

  1. Choosing the primary source

The primary source provides the transcript and captions for the whole composite item. In each row there is a radio button labeled "Use as primary transcript / captions." Select it to make that source the primary one.

  1. Reordering the grid layout

The number on each source (and in the grid preview) is its position in the layout. To change the arrangement, drag a source into a new position — you can drag either the rows in the list or the tiles in the grid preview. The preview updates to show the new layout.

  1. Muting or unmuting a source

Each row has a speaker icon that toggles that angle's audio in the finished video. Muting a source only affects its audio; the video itself still appears in the grid.

  1. Removing a source

Click the âś• icon next to the source remove it from the composite. The remaining angles re-flow to fill the grid.

đź’ˇNote:

If you remove a source when only two are left, the composite becomes a normal single-source reel item (there is nothing left to composite). Reduct confirms this with the message "Composite item converted to standard single-source reel item" and offers an Undo button if it wasn't what you intended.

Where composite items appear

Composite items use the same tiled thumbnail everywhere they're shown, including the reels list in the sidebar, so they're easy to spot at a glance.