I’ve been editing videos from a few years back, trying to get to grips with the massive backlog, and I thought I’d have a go at fixing something I made when I returned to China in 2009 – a timelapse video shot from the front of a tram across Hong Kong Island.
The original version was ok in terms of general concept, but the juddering effect of the tram’s movement made the thing difficult to watch. In order to fix it I spent an hour or so messing about with the deshaker plugin for Virtualdub and then another hour masking the resultant odd framing in Sony Vegas, brightening up the picture a little, making it look pleasantly odd.
The result is quite a bit better, I think, though it’s difficult to know if you’re improving things when you apply a series of minor changes one by one. Sometimes that just means you’re slowly ruining it.

Here’s the new video, then:

…and here’s the original, in case anyone wants to compare & contrast: