Flip Video: Camera Movements (aka avoiding the jittery dance of death)

Posted by kmastin on
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 8:02 am

Michelle had a good question about camera movement and shakiness: how do you move from one dynamic part of a scene to another part without insane shakiness (aka the jittery dance of death).

I think it’s quite possible with the Flip Video, but only with a video tripod.

A video tripod in particular because a camera tripod does not pan/tilt/level like a video tripod. It’s these tripod movements that will allow you to pan/tilt or pan & tilt your way through a scene.

Well executed camera movements create an impression of high production value so they are good for the most part. The downside is that when you compress video, movement means larger movie sizes after compression.

The explanation of why this is is extremely complicated and has to do with compression using a series of key frames where only parts of the frame are redrawn after the frames are compressed. Anyways, to make a long story short, simple graphic scenes that are steady and go from cut to cut without much panning or tilting will result in a smaller cleaner looking final web film.

One last thing: I would almost go out in the field with the flip attached to a full tripod whenever possible instead of the mono-pod. Your mileage may vary, but I think it’s worth the hassle to set up the tripod for steady shots when time permits. With a quick connect tripod plate (standard fare in most cases) you can go from tripod to no-tripod in matter of seconds. I use a tripod even with my $3000 HD camera which already has amazing image stabilization.

It takes a moment to get used to it but in the end it provides for much higher quality footage and it helps you compose a really nice frame. On the other hand sometimes you have to ‘run-and-gun’ as they say at the newspaper, and get what you can without a tripod because the action is happening fast and furious.

Kirk- Spielberg Team