Workshop
What you need: Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve
What you need: One hour
Shaky camerawork is barely noticeable as you’re filming a video – especially on your phone – but it can be very annoying when you watch your footage back. To give your videos a more professional finish, you can either use a tripod when shooting, or – if you prefer to travel light – iron things out in the edit. The free professional-level video editor DaVinci Resolve (www.snipca. com/47458) recently received a significant update (version 18.5) that added the ability to apply stabilisation to multiple clips simultaneously. This is a significant time-saver and an easy way to achieve superior results. Here, we explain how you can use the program to put your footage on more solid ground.
1 STEP Open DaVinci Resolve and click New Project in the Project Manager. Press Ctrl+I to open the Import box, then navigate to the clips you want to work with, select them and click Open. They will be added to the Media Pool in the top-left corner of the screen 1 . If Resolve prompts you to change the frame rate of your project to match your clips, click Change 2 . Press Ctrl+A to select all your clips, then drag them to the timeline in the bottom half of the window 3 . They will now be added one after the other, ready for editing.
2 STEP Stabilising shaky footage can put a lot of strain on your PC’s processor. So, before applying correction, trim down your clips to only the parts you want to use. The quickest way to do this is to start playing your footage and, when you reach the first frame you want to keep, press Space to stop playback. Now hover your cursor over the start of the clip, and it will change to a left-pointing marker. Click and drag the left-most edge of the clip 1 to the playhead marker 2 to remove the frames you don’t need.
3 STEP Now trim the end of the clip. Press Space to start the video playing again, then press it for a second time when you reach the last frame you want to keep in the selected clip. This time, hover your cursor over the right-hand edge of the clip so that it turns into a right-pointing marker. Click, hold, and drag the end of the clip 1 back to the playhead marker 2 to remove all the unplayed frames. Repeat this process for each clip on the timeline, then drag them next to each other so there are no gaps between them.
4 STEP Click Edit 1 at the bottom of the window to exit the cutting room, select each of your clips by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking them, then click Inspector 2 . Resolve has three tools for stabilising video, designed f
