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  • 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 :)

Is there such a thing as a good "hand-held" plug-in?

It's a very short shot, and so works better, and it's a combo of handheld effect and Star Trek "shake the camera - somethings blowing up", but the first shot of my reel has post-handheld applied. I think it looks seamless, at least for such a short take.

www.CharlesAngusTaylor.com/dopreel.html
 
the best method you have available to do yourself is shooting another shot (hopefully using the same field of view). using a wall, or a piece of paper, or something with distinguishable tracking markers is a very good idea. the simpler the better, just make sure you have little points of high contrast - if you're making something, use black triangles on white.

track the footage, and apply the motion to the position, then scale for the edges of the frame. render with motion blur.

if you missed it earlier, here's some examples of what you can get.

tracking a camera: http://vimeo.com/11114883

randomly generated shake: http://vimeo.com/10107042

the easiest, and often best thing is to do the camera tracking, as others and myself have suggested.

shoot me a PM if you need some more help.
 
I have done it in After Effects many times with good results. I remembered though that Andrew Kramer used it in this tutorial I think.

Haven't watched the tutorial to check but I am pretty sure he did.

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/animating_a_still/

Like others have said its not that only After Effects can do, it should be possible in most effects packages.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Hey there, Mr. Marchant. . . and others. . . can you point me to a web-accessible example of how it looks. Nick's comment that it might not "sell" has me a little concerned.

Thanks very much.

Stephen
Click to expand...

A rather dreary example, but it turns out its been longer than I thought since I employed the trick I mentioned.

http://www.puttingpeoplefirst.org.uk/Topics/Latest/Resource/?cid=7721

The initial interview was a tripod shot, but most of the surrounding shots were handheld, so I 'loosened' the tripod shot using the After Effects motion sketch method. As you can infer, its a two minute job to accomplish, or I wouldn't have bothered for such a piece (!)
 
Scott and Paul's example of motion tracking a genuine handheld shot that you like (with a marker) and then applying this to your footage is excellent. You'll get a really organic feel to it as it will be based on the real world as opposed to something that's randomly computer generated.

I looked at an example like this in Motion a few months back. Essentially you tracked a point on the handheld footage using STABILISE and then copied the resulting stabilisation path into the footage that you wanted to "de-stabilise".

The stabilise bit is really easy but I am trying to wrack my brain's to remember how to copy the motion path across. If I remember in time before you get the answer, I'll post it.

Of course, this would only help you if you were using Motion!
 
Hi Stephen,

OK, this piqued my interest again, so I resurrected the old Motion method that I was using a few months back and put together a simple example for you:

http://www.vimeo.com/18103791

Of course, this is just specifically for Apple Motion, but you can do it pretty much the same way in any of the other packages. The Motion method is really easy and quick as it pretty much does everything for you. Track the source and apply the tracked map to the stable footage.

This uses a similar target method to what Paul suggested. You want 2 targets on your source handheld footage as then you can track both XY movement and camera roll, which is of course the kind of movement you get handholding. I've used a paper target with 2 cross hairs in this example but you can use any source footage that has 2 good stable reference points…. e.g. If you were using a handheld shot of a street scene, 2 street signs in the shot would make good targets as the text on them would provide a clearly defined tracking target which would make Motion very happy. Motion likes tracking points that are nice and contrasty/prominent.

Of course, as Nick says, it only works if it's not too obvious that the background elements are not changing in relation to the camera movement + all the lens related issues that should be there, but aren't. However, if you choose your shots carefully to avoid this problem and keep the cuts short, you can probably get away with it. I've seen a lot worse effects in some "big budget" features.

What Jeff said about tracking it manually in FCP can be done in a pinch if you don't have access to the right software (I've done that in the past for match move a sky replacement), but Motion/AE does it automatically for you so it's a real timesaver. The bit in Motion was all real time, so that gives you some idea of how quick it is.

I did of course exaggerate my source handheld movement just for effect so you probably want some handheld footage that is not quite as handheld looking as my example!

And I do apologise for using the rather pretentious and obnoxious term: "Organic".

I hope this helps you.

Cheers, J


p.s. I did this late at night and have been pretty whacked the last few days entertaining our 3 small girls who are now on Christmas Holiday, so if I sound a bit "out of it", that's why!
 
Ahhh sorry... the one really important thing I stupidly forgot about was the motion blur:


- In motion you select View> Render Options> Motion Blur.
- To set your shutter angle go to Edit> Project Properties> Render Settings> Shutter Angle... default 180 degrees

Sorry about that... I'll try post another clip showing this option included tomorrow.
 
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OK, here's another short example, sadly not in HD as I by-passed my weekly limit with Vimeo (too tight currently to shell out for a subscription!). It was also shot on HDV before I had the RED, which doesn't help!

http://www.vimeo.com/18113588

As the subject is far away from the camera and the background is pretty neutral, you get a more realistic handheld simulation.

The original was shot on sticks and was pretty stable... although I must confess that I did add a little bit of stabilisation to account for some minor play on the tripod. If you keep your eye on the nose cone you'll notice that it stays uncannily in the same place!

I used the same bit of target handheld footage that I shot last night and used to de-stabilise Mike.

And I turned on motion blur in the render options. I must say that the motion blur is very subtle (and even harder to detect in Vimeo SD). I did play around with opening the shutter angle right up to 500 degrees, which accentuated the motion blur ridiculously, but to keep it "realistic" and in the realms of the standard film setting, took it back down to 180 for this example. There are all sorts of options in Motion for this and you can fine tune it to the look you want.

Well hopefully this all helps a bit!

Merry Christmas to all!
 
This is a SUPERB demonstration, and I can't even believe that you went through this effort for me. What a hero you are in this REDUser's book! May Santa bring you something extra special this year, Julian!

Really, this is a WONDERFUL resource!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

Stephen
 
Stephen,

Well, Santa's-wife was exceptionally kind and brought me the complete Coen Brothers collection, so very happy about that!

It was not a "chore" in any way and a good refresher for me too, as I'll probably be using it myself again sometime soon. As you know, R1's can be pretty heavy after hours of hand-holding and sometimes it's nice just to put them back on the sticks for a break.... but then you wish you had the dynamics of hand-held when you get back to the edit!

Of course, in the pursuit of excellence there are all sorts of improvements one can make. Using a target that takes up a wider aspect of the frame would probably yield more accurate/realistic results. I was playing around a bit more and contrary to what I said, you can actually add more than 2 tracking points, so that might yield even more refinement in the movement (or it may complicate things... I need to try it out properly!). You can also match move to scale so that you get subtle variations on any backward/forward movement of the camera. If you use 2 tracking points and tick the "SCALE" button on the match move section, it will use the distance between the tracking points to adjust the scale.

Another thing, if you are tracking points in some real handheld footage and the tracker loses it (sometimes they can't follow a real target you have chosen), there is a work around by going into the keyframes window to pick up the target again and continue automatic analysis.. If anyone wants to know more about this specifically for Motion, I can paste up a video on it. Just ask.

Nick's comments about matching the lens focal length that you film your handheld reference with to the original lens from the locked down footage you want to destabilise is probably one of the little refinements that will add something intangible/subtle to make it more realistic.

Cheers, J
 
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