How do video producers cope with matching or normalising inputs from multiple differing devices?

Question

I am looking to make a music video from a number of live shows by getting fans to send in their clips taken at the shows. We run our timing from a backing drum track on Cubase, so that is fixed, which means this should work, however I have never tried to use that many inputs in different formats, with different light levels etc. I don't need to worry about sound from the devices - we can take that from house sound.

Are there any things I should plan for?

More generically - how do video producers cope with matching or normalising inputs from multiple differing devices?

Answer 1

Apple's Final Cut Pro X includes a variety of auto-analysis and auto-correction features — stabilization, compensation for rolling shutter, color balance, et c. It can also attempt to automatically time-sync multiple clips, which I've found does a pretty decent job at roughing out the timeline.

While I normally would feel uncomfortable relying on automated corrections, for a large set of variant inputs, it's the only practical solution I've found.