• Adobe After Effects

  Stabilizing Motion – Head Movements

  Posted by David Robertson on September 22, 2009 at 2:32 pm

  Hello,

  I’m trying to standardise a set of talking head videos and have had a few goes at motion stabilization using some tutorials, but I can’t do what I’m trying to do.

  My films were filmed from a tripod, so there is no camera motion, but there is slight rotation and movement of the head while the people speak and I would like to minimize that, or remove it completely, to give a steady talking head without rotation or x,y movements. Unfortunately, I only have After Effects 7.0 with no prospects of an upgrade.

  Is it possible to stabilize such motion using the AE motion stabilizer? If so, how?

  Thanks.

  David Robertson replied 16 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  David Robertson

  September 22, 2009 at 4:07 pm

  I perhaps should have made it clearer… the motion I’m trying to eliminate is primarily x and y rotation/movement. No 3D problems.

  I also have more reasons for doing it than “it will look better”, it’s part of my work.

  I was just looking for suggestions on how to stabilize sideways or vertical movements.

  Thanks anyway.
• 

  Stuart Elith

  September 23, 2009 at 4:02 am

  David, my advice is to listen to Dave!
  I have recently been doing some work on something that sounds quite similar, with actors speaking to camera but moving around slightly because they were trying to get “into” their role… but it meant a lot of pain for us!

  In my case, we had tracking dots on the nose and 2 on the temple/forehead, and even so, had mediocre results with stabilization – any facial movements seem to distort the face more that you might think… a smile makes the nose shift slightly, any eyebrow movements really affect the whole forehead, etc.
  And I tried tracking the eyes but it was painful and still not a great result, even after I cleaned up the blinking frames etc.

  If a reshoot is at all possible (and you can give instructions that will avoid your problems recurring) then push for that, I think.
• 

  David Robertson

  September 23, 2009 at 9:02 am

  Thank you Dave and Stuart for your helpful comments.

  The off-screen rotation won’t be a problem, as I will be isolating the inner face features with an elliptical aperture mask and due to the relatively small presentation of the videos, any scaling I may do shouldn’t cause a big problem.

  I was having problems with one particular video (trying to track at or near the eyes) but had the blinking issues as you mentioned. I think I’m just going to have to go with the “best” results for him, rather than perfection. However, I tried tracking the corners of the glasses of another guy and it worked a treat, really excellent results despite quite a lot of head movement.

  Shame they don’t all have glasses.

  Thanks a lot for the help.

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up