Wobble TV - do you see the bouncing rubbish bins in Cold Feet

Wobble TV - the stabiliser button

For those of you who have no idea what a stabiliser is, or why the dustbins jump, let me explain. For those who do, I will be brief, skip this paragraph. If you film with a shoulder mounted camera, and the picture wobbles, you can hit a magic button and it might 'mend' it. It is basic maths and technicals. The picture / computer looks for a dominant mid picture icon, a dot, a cross member or upright lamp post. It says, right, that stays where it is - now ! As the picture was moving, but is now nailed by that point, the top will go up and down and the bottom will go up and down. The computer says, give me the best size you can and you might lose a inch from the top and bottom and then no wobble is seen.... magic. Simple really when you think about it. BUT >.... BUT, there are different perspectives. Like different levels of distance from the lens as in 3D and whilst the focal length of the face is anchored the very slight distance swing on the back wall moves.

So, as not to confuse you, you keep the object you want stable, the rest of the picture can be leaping around like a jack in a box. MOST PEOPLE never notice. It drives me mad ... it will you now I have told you want to look for. The worst example I have seen recently was the BBC film starring Julie Walters, Brooklyn. In the house in New York the whole picture I am guessing as shot hand held, I have no idea why as a drama it should have been stable. The executives had the insight to agree in post production and hit the stabiliser button. The wall paper is dancing an Irish jig in the back ground. How such a long list of executives did not have the experience to order the use of a tripod for intense drama I do not know but hey ..... the fact they used the stabiliser proves the shots needed to be steady.

So, Cold Feet .... two weeks ago as they walked through the park they we constant, but the stabiliser had been used on such an extreme shot that the rubbish bins in the park looked like they had been charged with explosives. They were jogging more than Julie's wall paper. It was an example of a very poor decision to save money (again) on a steady cam and use any gadget they can be sold from steering wheels with cameras in the middle to cameras on wheelchairs.

So, when you see the back ground move or phase, that is what has happened. The shot was wobbling, the main object is now fairly stable, but the other stuff is now in a musical.

What this also does is reduce overall quality, because 10 maybe 20% or 30% of the picture is lost. If you lose 30% of the top bottom and sides that is a square of the number as a loss.

100 x 100 = 10,000 pixels

70% left

70 x 70 = 4,900 pixels (half the quality (arguably)

So, as Sky Sports are now transmitting the first 4k football this year, and Broadcasters still shoot 2k at best and lose frame size with reframing and stabilising, what are they delivering? Less than you can get on YouTube...

So, there is a debate starter, like quoting that Netflix, Amazon and Sky all spend more on new drama now than the BBC. Sky! Form their little building in Isleworth, make more than the BBC who own as much in bricks as London transport. ... actually that is an exaggeration, but point made. Something is wrong at the top when multi execs stabilise pictures only after they see them, and bins dance on mainstream TV.

Just saying.... we used to be better than that.