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How to remove strobe/flicker in old film footage
I’m working on a project involving old 16mm footage of trains from the 1930s, and the guy who filmed it way back then had some camera malfunctions, which resulted in many of the shots being very jittery, and also having a jarring strobe/flicker effect. I think it was caused by the film not being loaded correctly.
The jitteriness I’ve fixed, but I’m looking for a way to remove the flicker effect. Most of the anti-flicker filters I’ve seen are for flickers caused by interlacing, which this isn’t. I’ve tried the Color Stabilizer effect in AE and haven’t been able to get good results. Is there any other way I can fix this without going through and color correcting each frame individually? Thanks for your input! -
7 Replies
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The Foundry Tinderbox 1 deflicker
https://thefoundry.co.uk/pkg_overview.aspx?ui=7EB882D6-AFE1-4CCA-B28D-B20DB7A46E7ARed Giant Film Fix is..gone..
https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/featured-news/ffhiatus/a great free msu deflicker virtualdub plugin for pc
https://compression.ru/video/deflicker/index_en.htmlYou could try scripting a deflicker by using time delay luma mattes that average a modifiable ammount.
https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/
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Lord, this is funny.
Most of the posts on this topic are trying to put those effects INTO some video.but first, I can’t tell form your post, are you sure these are film artifacts, from the original footage, or are they artifacts in or caused during the transfer?
I’v done some archive work. We would never attempt to improve or modify an original. It is what it is. Assuming you’ll be working from copies, be sure to hang onto the original transfer video copy. It could be quite rare and the towns or scenery depicted are probably long gone. Can you get the original 16mm?
bogiesan
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I just remembered that there’s a fast&dirty way to fix this. Simply apply color correction/auto levels and it will reduce 80% of the flicker by auto adjusting each frame to a standard max range.
https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/
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[Chris Wright] “Simply apply color correction/auto levels and it will reduce 80% of the flicker by auto adjusting each frame to a standard max range. “
Did not know that.
Excellent.bogiesan
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I’ve had success using color stabilizer set to brightness. Set a mid-range tone for the black and white points.
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Thanks for the help, guys. The flicker/shakiness is in fact a result of the filming process, as opposed to the transfer, as I’m told the guy who filmed it 70 years ago originally tossed the defective footage aside, and it was never processed, until recently.
Nevertheless, I believe I found a solution with the Tinderbox deflicker plug-in. I downloaded the trial, and have had much better results with that than with anything After Effects could offer. Thanks for all the suggestions.
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After trying color stabalizer and a host of other techniques, simply using Auto Levels worked beautifully in taking the pulsating out of a monitor that was in shot. Simply masked the monitor and then applied the effect.
Done and done. Thanks so much
Problem now is the Quicktime I output from AE, which is the same codec etc as the original footage, crashes FCP when I put it in the sequence and barely plays in QTPro.
I’ve never had this problem before with the output from AE, this was a 25 minute take, but that shouldn’t matter.
Any ideas?Sony EX1
Canon 5d mark 2
FCP 6.06
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