Its Magic! Add Realistic Handheld Motion To Your Videos Easily

In this short video filmmaker and photographer, Kyler Holland demonstrates how you can shoot and later edit any static or semi-static video to look as if it was shot handheld.

For certain types of videos (documentaries for example) having only a single static camera perspective (from a tripod) can look extremely boring). Even a slider movement during an interview can still feel tedious – especially during long shots.

What can you do if you can’t actually shoot those part handheld or prefer to have only part of those look static while others are a bit more dynamic? well, as Holland shows in this video, there is actually a really neat trick that you can do (both in-camera and in post using Premiere Pro) to make those lackluster shots look more dynamic.

So the first thing that you need to do after you finished recording your video is to record another (somewhat longer) video segment handheld that will be a little shaky (not too much, just a little side to side, front and back movement).

Now you should bring both clips to Premiere Pro and put the shaky clip above the one that you one that is stationary) and you need to choose both and use nest. Now add warp stabilizer effect to the nested clip (you can play with the amount and type of stabilization of course) and double click the nested click and make the top clip invisible. That’s it – your main clip should be shaky now as if it was shot handheld.

This technique seems super simple (we will be sure to test it in the near future). Of course, it might be a bit too much if you are shooting a long piece that you want to turn into a handheld one – but that will cause your viewers to get motion sickness anyway so it is better to stick to shorter clips for this one to work well.

You can find more Premiere Pro related videos on this link here on LensaVid as well as more videos by Holland on this link.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.