Learn how our customers are using Flicker Free to deflicker Rolling Bands (Camera/Light Sync Issues), Time Lapse, Slow Motion, footage with moving subjects, and more in real life!
Interested in participating in a user story? We are always looking for gallery footage! Let us know about your awful flickering footage and how Flicker Free saved the day! Email us at sales@digitalanarchy.com with a link to your video.
With an impressive portfolio of clients and work licensed for intros on Top 10 Trending Netflix shows, British filmmaker Ian Anderson first became known in the industry for filming B-roll for crime documentaries. His preference for a minimalistic approach and love for storytelling is easily seen on any of the videos he makes: the images are uniquely creative, purposefully placed in each scene, always with high attention to detail.
The pursuit of always finding the best angles led Anderson to also specialize in drone filmmaking. “Shooting and editing footage for real life crime scenes can certainly be both gripping and creatively challenging. However, the drone content has been an important way for me to bring overall life balance – in shooting more adventure based content” says Anderson. He now shares drone cinematography reviews and tutorials on Youtube, and has grown his following to 3.28K subscribers in just a year.
While producing content for his Youtube channel, Anderson has experienced moving image flicker in many different situations, which made him avoid filming in large cities or often deleting big chunks of footage he thought could not easily be fixed. Recently, while editing a review of drone accessories, he noticed pulsating flashes on the footage – a nuisance that was really distracting to the viewer – and decided to try deflickering the video in post-production. “For years I would either avoid situations where flicker may happen or delete footage instead of dealing with the problem. This time I tried a few ‘plug-in free’ fix tutorials on YouTube but for me they didn’t work so I gave Flicker Free a try”, explains Anderson.
Luckily fixing the flicker on Ian Anderson’s footage was easier than he imagined. The filmmaker could instantly save the footage from flickering by using the default settings in Flicker Free 2.0. He says it was a matter of dragging and dropping the plugin to the timeline. “I didn’t change anything. The plug-in did a really good job of analyzing the footage itself, removing the flicker without ruining any of the video quality. Also I left ‘Use GPU’ on because I was working with 4k and that made the process quite fast”, highlights Anderson – who recently also used Flicker Free on a hyperlapse shot in Scotland and keeps recommending the plugin to other filmmakers.
Flickering caused by background lights and propellers’ shadows are very common in drone footage and cannot always be avoided. Sometimes, like in the video review of drone accessories that Anderson was editing, it can only be seen in post-production. Flicker Free is quick and easy to use, and the motion compensation feature in the latest 2.0 version of the plugin makes it possible to deflicker video that was previously unfixable. Download the free demo, choose a preset, and see how Flicker Free 2.0 can save your footage!
White On Rice – a company that creates stop frame origami and paper animation for brands around the world – is clear proof that magic happens when we do what we love. Founded in 2014 after a 365 day Origami challenge that grew to over 100K followers in less than 2 years, the company is now a full time business for Origami Artist, Instagrammer and Filmmaker Ross Symons. From start to finish, Symons conceptualizes and creates custom origami designs, origami installations, stop motion animations, ads, and social media content for big brands and companies such as Samsung, Pixar, Red Bull, Nordstrom, Adidas and Mcdonalds..
When we first look at the short, but colorful, clean, playful videos posted on White On Rice’s Instagram account it’s easy to think they are quick and easy to create if you have the right software and technology. What people don’t realize is that those productions require time, patience and precision (not to mention amazing origami folding skills!) so a frame perfectly matches the next and there is no flicker on the image. A small bump of the camera and sometimes you need to start again. “Also tripod heads sometimes move so slightly that you only notice it in the end result. Removing rigs from frames is another challenge since doing this incorrectly creates a bit of flicker and “jumpiness” to the animation in the sections where the rigs are”, explains Symons.
To deliver high end videos consistently, the White On Rice team has been applying Flicker Free to every stop-motion animation they have done since 2017. Flicker was a recurrent problem no matter how careful Symons was while filming his videos so after testing different flicker removal software and techniques he chose to buy Flicker Free. According to him, the plugin worked like magic the first time and he knew he would use it over and over again. “Even though we use very specific techniques and high end equipment, some frames are often slightly brighter by such a small margin that the switching between the frames causes a very subtle strobe effect. Stop frame animation has that as a charming, jerky type side effect but it looks unprofessional. Most of the time it’s only noticeable to me but I like having clean flicker-free animations”, he says.
Slight fluctuations in light is the main cause of flickering in Symons’ work. He explains that “filming everything in one day makes it easier to keep the lighting consistent and is preferable. Also there are tricks to detach the lens from the camera so it is completely manual and no light changes happen but that doesn’t always work”. Flicker can also come as a result of shadows on the set, which is very hard to avoid and requires that the White On Rice team use Flicker Free to deflicker the videos in post. Having that option makes it easier to focus on finishing the production in a day and meeting deadlines since less time is spent modifying the set to avoid flickering.
Symons did test different flicker removal options, but he explains Flicker Free worked better than other apps like LTR timelapse because of the easy to navigate interface. The available presets also made a huge difference since they save him quite a bit of time in editing: the Timelapse preset on its own – or with minor tweaking – gives Symons clean footage at a manageable rendering time. “For the most part I conceptualize and animate all the videos we create so working quickly and efficiently is very important. Usually the default (8) timelapse preset is perfect. But if not I bring the sensitivity down to between 11-15 and sometimes fiddle with the time radius to improve the results. It can take some time to find the perfect settings depending on the flicker, but the presets always give me a good starting point even if they don’t completely fix the flicker right away”, he says.
Saving time in post is gold for any production: it means video editors can meet deadlines with ease and invest more time in creating unique films. For Ross Symons, plugins like Flicker Free are worth the cost because they raise the image quality of each production he delivers. Flicker Free also allows the White on Rice team of creatives to focus on what’s unique in their work – origami folding perfection, smooth animation, and the magic of watching a square sheet turning into fully formed objects to tell a story – instead of monitoring every single source of flicker in a production.
To learn more about Symon’s visit http://white-onrice.com
To download a demo of Flicker Free and see how well it works with your footage: link here
Filmmaker Emmanuel Tenenbaum started making movies 8 years ago and has received numerous awards since he started Studio Tenebaum in 2011. Recently, his Canadian/French short film Two Dollars (Deux Dollars) was selected in 85 festivals around the world, won 8 awards, has been broadcasted on a dozen TV channels worldwide and won as Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere of the week. An impressive accomplishment that was both a challenge and a surprise.
Two Dollars is a short workplace comedy originally made during the Quebec Kinomada, where filmmakers write, produce, and direct a short film in 10 days. The event is a huge challenge even for the most experienced film Director. “Two days prior to our shoot, we still had no location and no actors! We were calling local actors that we had never seen and who had never heard of us. There was almost no time for production and resources were very scarce”, recalls Tenebaum.
The very short production deadlines and limited equipment made Tenenbaum’s crew consider discarding Two Dollars completely. “The Kinomada screening was great and the film well-received, but once the whole event had finished, we didn’t really know what to do with the film: we surely had a strong story but there were some severe technical issues, and there was no way any decent festival would accept it”, explains Tenenbaum. Flickering lights were a big part of the problem.
In order to finish “Two Dollars” on time, the production team had to make the lighting for the shoot work with only two kino flows and a very tight timeline. “The shooting was fun. However, when I started editing, I found out with horror that one of the bulbs of the kino flow was flickering. The flicker was everywhere, especially on faces. It was subtle but very fast, and everybody would have noticed in the theater. I started applying Flicker Free to every single clip and it worked like magic”, remembers Tenenbaum.
This was not the first time Tenenbaum was able to save his footage with Flicker Free. He purchased the plugin a few years ago for “I’m happy to see you”, another well-received short film from Studio Tenebaum, and has been applying Flicker Free to a few commercial projects since then. “At the time I used the – Flicker Free – demo version and was happy with the results, so I gave it a go. No regrets. It takes zero time to set-up, it’s intuitive, and the results are beyond expectation. Thank you Digital Anarchy for making great plugins”, concludes Tenenbaum.
Emmanuel Tenenbaum is also a Beauty Box user. Learn more about his work at http://studiotenenbaum.com
Great example of the flicker you get when shooting slow motion at sporting events. In this case, Griffin Wing Productions shot a Championship high school football game, shooting a lot of 240fps slow motion footage. As often happens, the stadium lights caused a lot of flickering when shot in slow motion. They used the Flicker Free plugin to eliminate the flicker.
Aaron Griffin is the owner and Creative Director at Griffin Wing Productions. Griffin shoots a lot of sports with a Sony FS700 and when shooting at 240fps under stadium lights, flicker is a big problem. Stadiums usually have low quality lights and the high frame rate captures the lights oscillating in brightness at 60hz (or 60 times a second). “I was shooting for a local high school in the North Carolina 2AA Championship game. I got some really great shots but aesthetically the flicker was bad, really bad.”
Aaron Griffin, Creative Director
Griffin Wing Productions is a full service video company based in Raleigh, North Carolina
Marcus Herrick is a magician. He takes some of the most difficult footage and turns it into something visually appealing to hundreds of thousands of viewers. Marcus Herrick was also the Online Editor & Colorist for three series of The Amazing Race Australia (TARAUS).
Given the globe spanning scale of The Amazing Race, Camera operators for TARAUS are on the go for huge stretches of time, doing everything The Amazing Race Australian contestants do, only doing it backwards while shooting! What this means for Herrick and others in Post is you have to accept that while the camera operators are doing their best, you will on occasion get dark, soft, shaky and flickering footage. “Being able to fix flicker at the touch of a button is amazing! Being able to fix flickering as part of the grade a big time saver as well as being able to see how the effect impacts the grade. Flicker free has become my go to tool.”
The Amazing Race Australia shot with Panasonic Pro cameras and a variety of specialty cams, and edited with Avid Media Composer and graded with DaVinci Resolve.
Marcus Herrick’s company Haiku Post provides post production finishing services in Melbourne, Australia. marcus@haiku.com.au
Music video from the Bloody Beetroots featuring Tommy Lee (of Motley Crue fame). Some of the LED lights on the set were causing severe strobing in some shots. According to Agata, the director, Flicker Free was the only plugin that got rid of the LED flicker and really helped saved the production.
This isn’t regular flicker, it’s sort of rolling bands. It’s something that’s caused by the camera shutter speed and lights being out of sync. You can see other examples of rolling bands on the Flicker Free Examples page. Just another big problem the plugin can solve.
Check out the video on YouTube!
Pangolins are very rare animals, and the Critically Endangered Chinese Pangolin is even more so than others. Getting night-time footage of these animals is very difficult, and I never use flash or bright lights on animals, especially on nocturnal animals, so I carry a soft head-lamp. The previous night releasing pangolins in the forest, my head lamp broke, so we used an LED lamp to record a bit of video of these amazing animals instead.
Although it didn’t show up on the screen when checking the video, this LED lamp caused a terrible flickering on the end result, so be warned, never make the mistake we did! I may never get another chance to film this species, but luckily, I was able to salvage the video thanks to Digital Anarchy’s Flicker Free plugin!
Here’s a link to his blog post discussing how he removed the LED flicker with Flicker Free.
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