How to stabilize clips in a compound clip in Final Cut Pro

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How to stabilize clips in a compound clip in Final Cut Pro

I'm almost finished editing a multi-angle music video. In a couple of shots there is a slight camera movement when I pulled focus. Unfortunately, there is no stabilize feature when you select an angle within a compound clip. Can anyone recommend a work-around for stabilizing clips within a compound clip?

The only work-around I have found is to use the Shift F function to find the original clip, add it to a timeline, use the Stabilize filter on the clip. Bake the clip as a Master file. Add it as new angle to the compound clip. Synchronize the new angle and replace the old version of the angle with the new one. All in all it is a extremely cumbersome work around and wastes a lot of memory.

Manually, syncing the stabilized clip on the timeline is not an option as you can only nudge video by frames.

It would be nice if Final Cut Pro introduced nudging in increments of a frame or offered stabilizing in compound clips.

Posted on Feb 14, 2022 8:15 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

65,138 points

Feb 14, 2022 8:42 AM in response to Quillnib

There are a few things here that I don't understand:

1) You speak of angles, and compound clips - I suppose you mean multicam clips, right? Or are you using compound clips as your angles inside a multicam? Please clarify.

2) You CAN apply stabilization to a clip inside the Angle Editor. Just select the clip, open the Inspector, and check Stabilization, and make the desired adjustments to its settings

3) What has nudge to do with stabilization?

FWIW, you will never nudge by fractions of a frame, because video is composed of frames. You may do that with audio.

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Answer 2

Quillnib Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 14, 2022 9:25 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hi Luis, Thanks for getting back to me.

1) Yes. I did mean Multicam and not Compound clip. Sorry about that.

2) You're right the stabilization feature is available in the Multicam window. Strange that I couldn't find it earlier. Do you know if there a way to only stabilize a selection within a clip? The last time I tried this. The entire clip was stabilized which messed up the panning and tilting later in the shot.

3) Regarding the nudging question. I noticed that the synchronization in the Multicam window wasn't very precise. As this is a piano video, I wanted to improve the synchronization. I know that you can move audio in sub-frame increments in a timeline when the audio is detached from a clip. . When I tried adjusting the position master audio clip, within the Multicam window, it moved in frames and not 1/80th of a frame..

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Answer 3

Feb 14, 2022 9:38 AM in response to Quillnib

As far as I can tell, you can't stabilize just a section of a clip. In that case, I am afraid that exporting that section as ProRes and reimporting it is the available workaround.

I will have to test that part about nudging the audio inside a multicam.

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Answer 4

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,204 points

Feb 14, 2022 9:48 AM in response to Quillnib

You could blade the clip in the multicam editor and apply stabilization to a section. You just have to be careful in the project that this doesn't produce an unwanted jump in the video.

Unfortunately you can't nudge an audio file in subframe increments in the multicam clip container.

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Answer 5

Feb 14, 2022 8:46 AM in response to Quillnib

Also, in case you ARE using a compound clip in one of your angles: you can't stabilize the compound, but you can drill down inside the compound and stabilize the clips in there.

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Answer 6

Quillnib Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 14, 2022 10:01 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks!

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How to stabilize clips in a compound clip in Final Cut Pro

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