Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Handheld Smoothing in Post - Epic

Johnny Friday said:
I've done a TON of post stabilization since production could not afford what we needed. I recommend the following so that in post you get better results:
1. faster shutter than normal
2. overcrank slightly...so for 30fps footage, I'll shoot a 48 or even 60...at 180 minimum shutter but usually faster....then, in post you have more to work with and wont get as much blur if and when the camera jumps up or down.....more info that you give the stabilization software to work with, then less blur & crop.

forgot....then slow the footage down after all this is done to match your timeline speed.
Click to expand...

interesting advises: Thanks
 
Yeah, an Easy Rig is hopefully going to be an option.

I'm hesitant to make footage adjustments (higher shutter, higher frame rate) while shooting because I don't want the walking sections to stand out. However, maybe I was being too optimistic thinking post stabilization wouldn't change the look too much.

The bulk of this movie is handheld, so some shake in the image is expected to remain. I need to get testing! If anyone has links to samples, or samples of their own, send them along! I've found a couple, but not much.
 
Johnny Friday said:
I've done a TON of post stabilization since production could not afford what we needed. I recommend the following so that in post you get better results:
1. faster shutter than normal
2. overcrank slightly...so for 30fps footage, I'll shoot a 48 or even 60...at 180 minimum shutter but usually faster....then, in post you have more to work with and wont get as much blur if and when the camera jumps up or down.....more info that you give the stabilization software to work with, then less blur & crop.

forgot....then slow the footage down after all this is done to match your timeline speed.
Click to expand...

The fast shutter would work in reducing motion-blur, but the frame-rate manipulation will only work if you don't have to record any dialog.
Changing frame-rates result in unusable sound recordings. I recently bought Cobra-Crane's SteadyTracker Xtreme. It's a light-weight low-cost ($299) camera stabilizer. I'm using it with a very small camera, but I believe it should also work well with Scarlet, and possibly Epic in a minimal light-weight setup. When using that, I only need to apply a maximum of 5% of stabilization in post, if any. You might want to consider this one too. With hand-held shots I apply about 30-40% of the same. With Marcalli it looks very natural, and it can even automatically correct rolling shutter issues, but if you have too much perspective changes because of unwanted camera moves, and/or camera-move driven motion blur, nothing will be able to make it look right in post. As always, it's always best to get it right in camera as much as possible.

Good luck with your shoot!
 
AndyRydzewski said:
Yeah, an Easy Rig is hopefully going to be an option.

I'm hesitant to make footage adjustments (higher shutter, higher frame rate) while shooting because I don't want the walking sections to stand out. However, maybe I was being too optimistic thinking post stabilization wouldn't change the look too much.

The bulk of this movie is handheld, so some shake in the image is expected to remain. I need to get testing! If anyone has links to samples, or samples of their own, send them along! I've found a couple, but not much.
Click to expand...

The choice to make a show handheld is often based on the look that it gives. It sounds like your show is handheld purely for budget reasons. Walk and talk handhelds are tough, I've done a bunch of them and usually try to dissuade the director from attempting them if he/she is looking for a steadicam type move. There are other ways to do it, e.g. track alongside in a car, doorway dolly on the sidewalk or write the scene so that it's not one continuous tracking shot without the budget for a steadicam.
As far as movies go, I think that "the motorcycles diaries" was mostly handheld and I know "fast food nation " was. (we used easyrigs on fast food nation") Also "Friday night lights " (tv show) was all easyrig except for some of the football games where we used track.
 
To get smooth travelling shots with a handheld feel I like to get on a dolly with wheels but the Camera on my shoulder. It let's me control the movement a lot better and create the hendheld feeling rather than trying to reduce it.
In my Opinion completely stabilizing a hendheld shot won't give pleasing results. But you can control the stabilization, so that the shot gets smoother but keeps some of the original motion. Take a look at this toutorial to get an Idea: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/stabilize_shaky_footage/
Of course you can completely stabilze a almost smooth shot and the resoloution of the RED really helps here, but if you are forced to shoot handheld I would make an advanatge of it and tell the story in that way, other than trying to hide it.
 
there are indie versions of the Easy Rig. I love the ENG Rig - but there is also the over the shoulder top stabilizer.

Also in terms of steadicam - buying a sword is expensive - but hiring a Samurai is quite cheap.
 
Ed David said:
there are indie versions of the Easy Rig. I love the ENG Rig - but there is also the over the shoulder top stabilizer.

Also in terms of steadicam - buying a sword is expensive - but hiring a Samurai is quite cheap.
Click to expand...


As a steadicam operator I will be stealing that quote Ed... Best I have heard in a while! Good work
 
Ed David said:
there are indie versions of the Easy Rig. I love the ENG Rig - but there is also the over the shoulder top stabilizer.

Also in terms of steadicam - buying a sword is expensive - but hiring a Samurai is quite cheap.
Click to expand...


Excellent statement!

Just to update-- it looks like we will be hiring a steadicam operator (samurai) for the days we need it. Thank you guys so much for all the advice. You clarified a lot and made me realize where we can and cannot adjust our shooting plan/style.

As a follow up, if anyone knows of any over the shoulder support that is less expensive than the Easy Rig, I'd love to hear about it.

Again, thanks so much. To be able to discuss/brainstorm/debate with other professionals really is amazing. Hazaa for the internet!

- Andy
 
It sounds like you've got it all worked out, but I'll throw my two cents in anyways. Stabilizing in post works best if the shot is wide, high shutter speed, and panning or tilting. Tight, 180 degree shutter tracking shots are the hardest. Especially in tight spaces like the narrow streets of Barcelona. Without a solid tracking point in the distance, it is very hard to achieve. You can always track the subject, but that does strange things to the background.

Here is my favourite example of IS. They did everything wrong (on purpose) and it looks amazing. It gives you an idea of what it looks like when you track the subject rather than a point in the background, use a slow shutter, and don't even try to hold the camera steady. It starts just after the 6:00 mark and the effect is used primarily in the close ups. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4rO60aoJ04
 
I just stumbled upon this thread, and a few days ago I used AE 5.5's warp stabilizer with some 7d footage. You can see the distortion around the edges quite evidently, but I think this video gives you an idea of what would happen. I've yet to use it on a moving shot, but I think that if the camera were moving, the warp would be more pronounced.

http://vimeo.com/29505313
 
TonySegreto said:
I just stumbled upon this thread, and a few days ago I used AE 5.5's warp stabilizer with some 7d footage. You can see the distortion around the edges quite evidently, but I think this video gives you an idea of what would happen. I've yet to use it on a moving shot, but I think that if the camera were moving, the warp would be more pronounced.

http://vimeo.com/29505313
Click to expand...


As I mentioned before, there are two disadvantages to the 5.5's warp stabilizer:
1) Takes a long time to render and process.
2) Tends to have those weird artifacts (that you might notice at the very beginning of that shot.

I did head-to-head comparisons and I strongly recommend PRODAD's Mercalli, which seems to process much faster and get better results.
 
Here is an updated video with comparisons between Warp Stabilization and Mercalli. There are a bit more options with Mercalli that I didn't really dive into, so this test is pretty much right out of the box. The built in AE stabilizer took about 5 minutes to analyze the footage and stabilize it. Mercalli took about 25 seconds, which in itself is pretty amazing.

As you can see in the footage, Mercalli did take away most of that weird artifacting that was going on in the beginning of the clip, but had some issues toward the end with the flashing. With the built in AE stabilizer, if some mishap like this happened, you can go into the key frames and manually adjust the nodes to compensate for those few frames. With Mercalli you don't get the opportunity to do any frame by frame adjustments.

All in all, Mercalli seems pretty awesome, and there are different option for moving shots AND static shots depending on how you want to stabilize. For $250, it's definitely a viable low cost stabilizing option.

(the blue X's are the watermark for Mercalli since its the demo)
 
Thank you for posting this comparison. I'd never heard of Mercalli, so it's great to have another option. Time to start doing some tests!
 
I have had very good results with NukeX's stabilizer node. Lots of tweaking of settings is possible. It is an expensive package, but we use NukeX in some way on just about every project. Got a problem with a shot? Nuke it!

Mike
 
I've runned though slums in Lisbon with the Epic and got to the conclusion : if you don't use any stabilisation, better use your arms!

Any contact with your body (shoulder mount...) will increase the bumpy effect.

I've used the belt power, no side handle but an outrigger handle and the LCD.

We really runned as fast as we could (actors an myself) and the path was really stony and bumpy.

Pat
 
Hey, I thought I should post the follow up to this forum. We shot our film in Barcelona and here is the trailer:


We carefully chose the days when we could have a steadicam operator (who was amazing!) and the rest of the "moving" work was done handheld and treated as such, or shot at 48fps with 1/100 shutter and then sped up and stabilized in post. Post ended up going much faster than we had originally anticipated, so we didn't stabilize all the shots we planned, but it all fits together well in the final product.

Thanks so much to everyone who helped me work through some of these decisions last fall. As always, other camera nerds come to the rescue!

- Andy Rydzewski

http://www.filmandy.com
 
Yuval Shrem said:
As I mentioned before, there are two disadvantages to the 5.5's warp stabilizer:
1) Takes a long time to render and process.
2) Tends to have those weird artifacts (that you might notice at the very beginning of that shot.

I did head-to-head comparisons and I strongly recommend PRODAD's Mercalli, which seems to process much faster and get better results.
Click to expand...

Actually it doesn't - Mercalli is prosumer at best - but you have to know how to tweak settings in Warp Stabilizer. That said, almost any stabilization will have tons of artifacts, like parallax shifts that look wrong.

Often Steadicam op is cheapest and best solution (don;t buy a Steadicam, hire one - Steadicams are very hard to learn and a talent)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top