Supercross
Also known as: SX, indoor motocross
Motocross on a tight artificial track inside a stadium, where the light is electric, the positions are fixed and the jumps are enormous.
Updated
What it means
Supercross is motocross compressed into a stadium. A short, built track with large jumps and tight rhythm sections, which puts every feature of the lap within a few metres of a spectator position and leaves nothing hidden behind a hill.
The artificial light changes everything about the image. Stadium lighting is bright, uneven and cycling at mains frequency, which is a completely different problem from the outdoor version.
It differs from Motocross in access as much as in scale. Nobody gets trackside without a pass, so most footage comes from a seat, which decides the angle before anybody chooses it.
How it works in practice
Shutter has to match the lighting. A rate that does not divide into the mains frequency produces flicker and banding across the frame, which makes it the single most important setting to fix before a stadium session starts.
A long lens from a seat is the realistic position. Compression keeps the bike large and crops out the crowd, and it is the only way to make a seated position produce a usable shot.
The rhythm section is the shot nobody else gets. A sequence of jumps taken in one pass reads as a single continuous movement, which is more interesting than any individual air.
What to watch out for
Flicker ruins clips in a way nothing fixes afterwards. Mains-frequency lighting against a mismatched shutter produces pulsing brightness across every frame of the clip, and Flicker removal only partly helps once the footage is already recorded.
Mixed colour temperature defeats automatic balance. Stadium lights and screens have different colours, and a camera on Auto white balance shifts as it pans across them.
The crowd is in every wide shot. A frame that includes the stands dates the footage and distracts from the track, which is why a long lens is a necessity rather than a preference.
How RawClip handles it
Jumps and rhythm sections score as clear peaks and cut naturally against music, so a race reduces to the strongest passes. Flicker from stadium lighting is something the capture settings have to prevent, since nothing in assembly removes it reliably.