Helicopter shot. Shot in 90 FPS, high shutter. Now what? (Premiere CS6)

[Thomas Koba]

Ok, so I shot some shots in a helicopter. Used 90 FPS, and high shutter. Going for a 25 FPS edit in Premiere CS6.

What's the best way to proceed with stabilizing and making this usable?

Here's my take.

1. Stabilize the 90FPS in a 90FPS timeline.
2. Add motion blur to shot (Which effect?)
3. Put in a 25 FPS timeline, and speed the thing up to reach speed. (Was thinking of tripling the speed. Then using that 30fps in 25fps playback, so I get a little bit of that slowmo-feel)


Any ideas? Should I stabilize last? Or what do you guys think will render the best result?

 

[Jason Comparetto]

I always thought adding motion blur would be one of the last steps you'd want to do. I would try stabilizing first so that the stabilizing engine has the most data to work with. Other than that I think I would go for it.

 

[Thomas Koba]

One thing I don't quite understand yet. Haven't tried, as I´m offloading footage right now.

If I stabilize a 90fps clip. The stabilizer will think, that the clip is quite stable, as it is moving in slowmotion, right? How do I crank up, the stabilizing, to compensate for the 90fps framerate? Or am I overthinking it?

 

[Ethan Knight]

You're over thinking it . I believe it works some what similarly to resolve, where the motion tracker 'normalizes' any movement of the frame.
Plus the only way for the warp stabilize to work is in a matching sequence size wise and without any speed ramps.

 

[Paul Watt]

Create a timeline using your shots as the template, apply warp stabilizer then render out a file from that. Prores or whatever of whatever resolution you're editing your project in. Then take that file and speed it up/add motion blur or whatever else you have to do to look good. That's what I do, anyway.

 

[Flo Eckhardt]

jump to AE for stabilizing .... I think the stabilizing has better filter controls there

 

[Björn Benckert]

There are one profession called "DOP" it comes with a lot of experience and know how.... Working with stabilizers and 3D trackers is profession as well. Just as you can become a really good DOP you can educate learn and work with image tracking and 3D stabilization... So your question is a bit like asking " I got a camera so how do i shot the best possible image?" Well it all depends. There is auto stabilization, there is auto tracking/stabilization with multiple sliders that can be adjusted / key framed. And also there is highly advanced 3D trackers that people spends years to learn just the basics for and then after a few more years becomes "Head of 3D track" at a major VFX facility or such and keep learning form there, programing their own camera scripts etc...

But the basic steps for what you want to do is the following (I have not seen your material so I might be slightly wrong)

1. You have to decide if the material actually needs the "true motion blur" I would guess it does not as helli shots actually normally does not have much fast moment as the objects are usually quite far from the camera. To make a quick evaluation so you can make this decision you speed up your material with 300% with (important) no interpolation. Basically you now throw away 2 frames out of three... This gives you a third of normal motion blur if you shot with 180 shutter. When thats done you play back the material (important) at the preferred/intended screen size. Large screens demand more motion blur than small screens to prevent unwanted"strobe effects" If all your material looks good on your screen then you move on to the next step. If your material does look strobing, then you got a problem, then you can decide to not speed up as much, like play it in 200% or you can try to ad post motion blur and interpolation... There is quite a few options for programs making these things. One is better than the other and some is better for certain shot and so on. Cinespeed in cineon was the original and still kicks everyones ass. Twixor works, flame timewarp is quite decent and so on. The all work different at different resolutions ass well so you are then in for a trial and error... Also the motion blur should be applied post to stab. So if your material strobe then you need to first stab it and then speed it...

2. Stabbing.
There are quite a handful of quick fix programs for this. Any decent compositing software has one or a few options that you can try.
Normally the quick fix is not really what you want. Usually a 2 point tracker with a jitter remove will usually do better but it takes knowledge and time.
The best option with full control is actually to use syntheyes or any other advanced 3D tracking software and then script a VR camera that reshoot the footage that is then projected on a CG plane. with the tracked camera as a projector. This way you have full control in 3DS max, Maya, nuke, flame or such to adjust what camera movement you want to keep and what not to keep But again, it takes knowledge in several programs and I doubt that its not really feasable to become a good DOP and learn how to get around it all within a working carrier... So the more feasible option is to use a auto stab software, whats available in FCP10 or resolve or such and see how it goes... if it does not go well then you turn to a post house.


So deal down from 90 to 30 with playback in 25 then speed. This gives you 1/3 the rolling shutter and motion blur. My guess is that you will not be missing the missed motion blur much, on the conterary your helli shots will look crisp from the short moblur. and from dealing first you got less material to stab which gives you shorter renders... if you go for 4k finnish then that is quite important..

 

[Thomas Koba]

Thanks for that explanation Bjorn. It makes very good sense. I've now tried with the standard Warp Stabilizer, and it looks crisp and clear, and works very well in tripled speed (30 frames running at 25FPS). So probably I won't need to dig further into this. I think we had a very stable helicopter and weather today...so...all good.

PS. I did read it before I went on the trip, but still I made the mistake of not shooting wide enough for the post-framing stuff. But it'll work out.

Thanx people!

 

[Michael J Brennan]

Yes the idea of shooting 90fps is that the image will be screened in slo mo.
So you should consider and plan when you shoot that the on screen shot duration will be 3x longer than at the time you shoot it.

Once you have chosen your shots image stabilisation can still be applied on the 30fps timeline if the required.

Mike Brennan