Addressing the Shaking Camera Effect

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

QUESTION:

Asalaamu’alaikum,

Hope you are well Insha’Allah.

Mashallah you do very good work; keep at it Insha’Allah.

I just wanted to ask a question Insha’Allah…

Background
I’m a graduate in Multimedia Technology and for my final year project I did a short documentary on Amateur Football (soccer). I remember that one criticism from my tutors was that the camera was shaking way too much and in instances “make people feel sea sick”. I was going for the natural look whereby the audience feel involved but it didn’t quite turn out that way in the end.

Then I came across the way you use the camera freehand yet, still maintain this smooth transition or flow when moving/tilting the camera in various directions.

Basically I just wanted to know how you do that? Is it that the camera is worth thousands of dollars or is it that you edit the video in a specific program to smooth the film out, so to speak.

I would love to know how you achieve that effect if possible Insha’Allah, as my ex-university, Greenwich, have a debate planned between a Muslim (Hamza Tzortzis) and an Athiest Insha’Allah in a few weeks time, titled ‘Does God Exist?’, and I was thinking of ideas, being the cameraman.

Also, something came to mind, if you don’t mind, another question. I remember in a video of yours, I think it was the trailer to the ‘Fiqh of Salaah’ talk. The camera had this nice ‘focal point effect’ on the man in front of the camera i.e the corners of the screen were dimmed so as to put the focus of attention on the speaker. I was wondering how you do that as well Insha’Allah.

If you could help me out Insha’Allah, I would be very grateful.

Jazakallah khair

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ANSWER

Walaikum asalaam.

When it comes to stabilizing footage there are several ways to go about it. You can either do it in production or post-production.

Personally I think its best to approach this matter in production. Its easy to add the “shaking camera” effect later, but much harder to remove it.

In the members area I’ve written an article addressing “camera stabilizers”

To address your issue specifically:

What Do I Use For Camera Stablization?

Currently I use a Steadicam Merlin for my stabilization needs. I’ve used this on my Canon FS100 as have used it on a friends borrowed Canon HG10 and recently Canon HF S100.

In the past I’ve also used “The Poor Man’s Steadycam“. It doesn’t compare to the Merlin, but it’s worth the $14.

If you want to record a lecture – I’m assuming the debate is a lecture – then I’d recommend instead of building a stabilizer you should build a track. Get yourself 2 – 4 cameras for proper coverage and have them all on tracks

I’ve used this tutorial for building my tracks (slightly modified from the video’s tutorial)

The “Focal Point Effect”

It’s actually a vignette. I applied this effect in post via an Adobe Premiere plug in called “Magic Bullet” from Reg Giant software.

hope that helps.

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