Cut the camera shake out of your Final Cut Pro footage

Shakefree finds the shaky seconds in your clips and hands Final Cut Pro a project with them cut. You review the shakes in the browser, then import one FCPXML file.

How it works

1. Drop your clips. Or a Final Cut Pro project with its videos. Shakefree reads them in your browser.
2. Review the shakes. Each shake shows in red on the clip's timeline. Play them, and move the sensitivity if you want more or fewer.
3. Export to Final Cut Pro. Shakefree writes an FCPXML file, imported with File, Import, XML. Import it and the cuts are already made.

What Final Cut Pro gets

Final Cut Pro gets FCPXML (.fcpxml). In Final Cut Pro choose File, Import, XML and pick the file. A new project opens with your clip already cut. Shakefree can also write a cleaned MP4 of the clip.

The output options

You choose what the file holds:

• Stable only. The timeline with the shakes removed.
• Shakes only. Only the shaky parts, to check what was cut.
• Two tracks. The stable parts on one track and the shakes on another, every piece in its place.
• Markers only. The full clip with a marker on every shake, nothing cut.

Ripple closes the gaps a cut leaves, or keeps them so the rest of the timeline does not move. You choose before you export.

Clean a whole project

Already cutting? In Final Cut Pro select the project and choose File, Export XML. Final Cut Pro 10.6 and later saves an .fcpxmld bundle. Drop it on Shakefree together with its videos. Shakefree matches every clip to its video by name, scans them, and saves yourproject-shakefree.fcpxml. Import it back with File, Import, XML. Your edits, titles and music stay where they were. Only the shaky parts of the primary storyline are cut.

An example

Arrival at the temple, Indian wedding 6:09

One glide cam shot of a wedding arrival. The shooter kept recording while moving ahead of the people walking.

1 clip, 16 shakes, 41 percent of it shaky. Watch the clip on YouTube

Shake counts from the Shakefree Premiere plugin on the same clips, published on wobbleai.com in 2020. The web app uses a newer version of the same detector, so a scan today can differ by a shake or two. More examples on the camera shake page.

Why cut instead of stabilize

A stabilizer smooths small, steady movement. When the camera jerks in several directions at once, or the shooter walks to a new spot while recording, the frames are blurred and there is nothing steady to recover. Those seconds have to go. Shakefree finds them so you do not have to scrub for them. Read more about camera shake.