Boom Shadows and Image Stabilization

A

adaml

Well-known member
In some of my footage the shadow of the boom is visible at the bottom of the frame and extends in about an eighth of the way up. The shot is of a cow pasture, and the shadow is in the grassy area (actually it does this in a few shots but this is the one I'm dealing with now). Anything I can do to get rid of it?

Also, I have some shots I'd like to use if it wasn't for too much shakiness. Is there any good option in post or am I screwed?

I'm using FCP 5.1.2 but if I know I can clear these up later using some other software then I'll go ahead and use them and take care of the issues later.

Many thanks,
Adam
 
If you can post a screencap we might be able to help.

I've removed boom shadow in the past by using After Effect. I put two instances of the shot on each other, substractive mask off the part with the boom on the top copy, and then shift the bottom part away. In that case it works because the shot was in a forest and the mismatch doesn't show up for the foliage. If there's grasses in your shot you might be able to do the same thing. The other time I did it the boom shadow was on a white wall so I cut out another part of the wall and just animate it so it covers the shadow. Both happened to work pretty well.
 
Simple things you could try in Final Cut:

for boom shadow - put the same clip overtop of the mainclip, then crop the overtop clip so that there is a section of grass that resembles the rest of the main clip. If need be move the clip to position it/rotate it to hide the shadow. Also, use the edge feather in the crop tab to blend the two shots together.

for shaky - slow the shot down, slightly, say 85%. Then adjust speed until the shot seems useable if 85 ain't good enough. (dialogue shots probably wouldn't work. But if it's a short shot, it's possible to get away with using it)(unclick blend frames if shot in 24p).
 
If the boom is near an edge, go into the motion tab and increase the scale. You can probably go to about 130% without degrading your clip noticably.
 
Thanks for the advice. The crop/overlap/feather method seems to work well enough to get by and save the shot.

I have used the slo-mo method, up to 50 percent sometimes with decent results. However, some of the shots I'm dealing with now won't work slowed down. I'm wondering if there's any decent way to do an image stabilization without slo-mo, for instance for a sloppy moment in the middle of an otherwise stable handheld shot of a talking person. BTW, the footage is 720/24p shot with the HVX.
 
adaml said:
Thanks for the advice. The crop/overlap/feather method seems to work well enough to get by and save the shot.

I have used the slo-mo method, up to 50 percent sometimes with decent results. However, some of the shots I'm dealing with now won't work slowed down. I'm wondering if there's any decent way to do an image stabilization without slo-mo, for instance for a sloppy moment in the middle of an otherwise stable handheld shot of a talking person. BTW, the footage is 720/24p shot with the HVX.
Click to expand...

If you have Shake, or access to it, there is a feature called I believe
Shaky Cam that does what you want incredibly well. I saw it demonstrated
and it's really good.
 
Thanks for the tip. I don't have it but I do have access. I'll do some tests and see how it goes.
 
If you have access to Shake, perhaps you have access to someone that is an advanced user with it? I would track down a visual effects artist and have them use Shake to do it for you. Its not that difficult for someone who is capable with the program (just a little bit of sampling from a clean portion and a dynamic matte). Well depending on the shot at least. Some might be a little more complicated than that (but again someone who is a visual effects artist can get it done).

As for the shakey shots. Super easy to do with Shake. You will need to 'zoom' in a bit, or res-up, whatever you want to call it. So depending upon the source footage you might lose a bit of quality, but if the shake isn't too heavy it could be essentially unoticeable.

cheers.
 
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