Blackmagic Forum

Hi BM fellows!
Recently shot a short film using Red Weapon 6K Dragon, almost all handheld.
Just received few comments about shacking footage with clear suggestion I should use gimbal or because it's 6k I could stabilize in POST.
Edited/Colour Graded in DR 17 Studio
Question - what is your thoughts please? How good Dr stabilizer is? Feedback welcome

Yeah, personally I'd stabilize it -- you're obviously not going for the "run and gun" effect and those small movements make it look a bit amateurish.

The DR stabilizer *can* be quite good but you may have to try the different options and believe it or not, sometimes the older classic stabilizer works better than the newer options.

Disclaimer: I'm not a movie-maker -- I just make a mess on YouTube... but I do watch a lot of movies.

I don't think there's really a "right" answer, but to me the juxtaposition between the locked-off shots and the ones that waver around seems a bit odd and it doesn't seem like there's a thematic purpose to the difference.

my concern would be the fast mini-bumps, it's easy to stab the shot, but the motion blur is baked into the cam orig and may well be vastly more annoying with the plate stablised
at least when it's wobbling about a bit the mo blur is easier to accept
if you are using v17, try it out, there's options on top of options, spend the time to find the sweet spot, and be prep'd to say the sweet spot is zero stab

Yeah, I have to admit that when I'm shooting a relatively static scene and am hand-held (which means I *will* be using stab in post) I often run a much higher shutter speed so as to remove any motion-blur introduced by small camera movements.

After Effects has a filter to cure those micro blurs, which is not bad. I wish BM would develop something similar.

Some of it looks fine, some, based on the previous shot, or the sequence it is in is a bit "odd"

As the film maker, you have every right to of course say " that's what I was going for"
Asking friends for an opinion is always a can off worms as well.

Personally, I would stabalize the entrance to the front steps at 1:10. The previous and next shots make the wobble in that shot seem "off".

The exteriors around :43. There is no reason for these to be hand held. I don't have the feeling of being a person spying on the scene, and i'm not following the character through the house....i'm just watching a static shot, that isn't static... And i think the cut back to the shot up the stairs, before the cu of the tablet is too short, or perhaps, just not needed. Pace is way off....see, opinions are a can off worms

The OS at 1:20 ...would be nice to see if this could be smoothed out...a bit rough especially on the follow down with the tablet.

Most of the walking through the house shots, i wouldn't touch.
The reveal of all the tablets on the table...again, I don't think you need to stabalize, but perhaps some smoothing would be nice. 1:45, 1:47, 1:50, 1:54.

Probably would try to smooth the last shot a bit as well.

my 2 cents