Stabilizing Shaky Rock Concert Footage

Question

Stabilizing Shaky Rock Concert Footage

I have a nightmare of a job but I want to spend as much time as it takes to really make this look good.

I have this footage of a rock concert, but its real shakey as the cam was handheld and recorded in HDV. I've got some nice smooth cams out of that node, but this stuff drives Shake bonkers with way too much mess ups. The whole screen moving 50% with each flash. Big concert with tons of flashes, strobing lighting effects and handheld shaky footage.

I am guessing there is a way to do this using the STABILIZE node and adjusting the many parameters for tracking 2 or 4 points. And then keyframing frame by frame when the tracker loses its tracking points which it does every few frames. So I need to keyframe manually much of the footage. I probably have up to 20 minutes of video that I'd like to do, maybe more.

Anyway, know of a consultant in NYC or Long Island that I could sit down with for maybe 2 hours an learn the exact process. I can't seem to figure it out on my own. I think with 2 hours of help, I might be able to learn to do it and make this video awesome.

I for sure need a total pro in stabilizing the most difficult kinds of video. If anyone can help me, thanks!

Dual 2.5 Ghz PowerPC G5, Mac OS X (10.4.9), 4.5 GB RAM, 2TB (4 drives) RAID; Aja Kona Lh Capture Card

Posted on Feb 19, 2009 7:06 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 20, 2009 12:28 AM in response to Stefan Boyland

The stabilization nodes are designed for small amounts of movement like the minor deviations you get from scanned film. You will not get good results on something with 50% movement. Even if you manage to successfully stabilize it (this will require a lot of manual tracking which will probably take weeks for the whole 20 mins of footage) you will lose significant portions of the frame and will need to either zoom in or crop the frame, lowering the quality significantly.

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Answer 2

Feb 20, 2009 1:01 AM in response to Jon Chappell

You are correct. I am finding the best footage to correct and hope to reduce it down to 10 minutes. I just spent 5 hours doing and by trial and error I think I found the best way for my footage.

I use the stabilize node. And I track the nose or forehead and keep that as the center of my tracking. When that is finished, I add a MOVE 2D node and then gently let the singers head shift a bit to the left or right of the frame over many frames and this way I won't have to zoom in as much. I find a nice medium and put a few keyframes in.

I am hoping I can complete about 15 seconds of footage for every 15 minutes or about 1 minute per hour. If this is true, I can do the whole job in about 10 hours of work to stabilize 10 minutes of video. Not terrible considering. Tomorrow I will test to see if my expectations meet with reality. And maybe after a few hours I'l get faster and better at it.

It would be awesome to be able to do 2 minutes of footage per hour. That's my hope once I get good. I could certainly find 20-30 minutes of footage to stabilize.

Anyway, I just did a 17 second clip tonight and experimented with it for hours and got it good. I think I can now apply that and do it far faster now that I know how to use the tools better. Let me know what you think of this solution.

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Answer 3

Zebulun

Level 5

6,749 points

Feb 24, 2009 11:39 AM in response to Stefan Boyland

I'm no tracking expert but you can track this with Shake quite easily I would suspect. I use a tracker or several trackers and then use those tracks within the Stabilize or Matchmove nodes; I rarely use the trackers within those two nodes. I'll also build heavy contrast into the pixels before a tracker so the pixel tracker has something to really latch onto.

This being said, I really really like Mocha for tracking. Once you've used this, the pixel trackers in AE, Motion and Shake seem almost obsolete.

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Answer 4

poplady

Level 1

0 points

Mar 3, 2009 7:47 AM in response to Zebulun

I saw a mocha demonstration once it was really impressive, too bad you can only use it with after effects. I have to get on the after effects wagon.

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