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SmoothCam Filter
During a recent shoot, we had 3 cameras. Two were on tripods, and one was hand-held. While I was editing I found the hand held a little too jarring, and so i kept trying to edit around it, until....I was leisurely reading the FCP User Manuel (yes, i know), when I stumbled across the SmoothCam Filter.
It's quite simple to use. Select the clip(s). Choose Effects > Video Filters > Video > SmoothCam.
The clips process, and viola, a little better.
However, it isn't all magic. To reduce the shaking, the clips are enlarged enough to cover up the steadied movement resulting in them being slightly blurry.
The manual offers a few tips. First, the SmoothCam should be the first filter before anything. Then you can adjust the Filter Parameters. You can decrease the Auto Scale so that it zooms out. There's also the option to control the steadiness of the shot by three independent parameters: Translation (left, right, up, down); Rotation (around the center point of the image); and Scale (forward or backward camera movement).
Scale seems to be the main culprit behind the distortion that I'm hating, but again, this can be fixed by the Auto Scale I mentioned above, or by the three parameters I was just mentioned. By reducing all three, less motion correction is applied, and less black around the clips, resulting in needing to scale less (big breath).
A few other tips offered by the manual include isolating the clips with the most movements with cuts, especially when there are noticeable changes within the frame (like before someone enters frame, and before they exit).
Seems like it takes a lot of work, but when you're just not happy with everything you shot once you're back at your computer editing, at least fixing little visual things like this will help you focus more on your story.
It's quite simple to use. Select the clip(s). Choose Effects > Video Filters > Video > SmoothCam.
The clips process, and viola, a little better.
However, it isn't all magic. To reduce the shaking, the clips are enlarged enough to cover up the steadied movement resulting in them being slightly blurry.
The manual offers a few tips. First, the SmoothCam should be the first filter before anything. Then you can adjust the Filter Parameters. You can decrease the Auto Scale so that it zooms out. There's also the option to control the steadiness of the shot by three independent parameters: Translation (left, right, up, down); Rotation (around the center point of the image); and Scale (forward or backward camera movement).
Scale seems to be the main culprit behind the distortion that I'm hating, but again, this can be fixed by the Auto Scale I mentioned above, or by the three parameters I was just mentioned. By reducing all three, less motion correction is applied, and less black around the clips, resulting in needing to scale less (big breath).
A few other tips offered by the manual include isolating the clips with the most movements with cuts, especially when there are noticeable changes within the frame (like before someone enters frame, and before they exit).
Seems like it takes a lot of work, but when you're just not happy with everything you shot once you're back at your computer editing, at least fixing little visual things like this will help you focus more on your story.