Motion tracking for film footage

Here are the basics:

Camera Tracking relies on fixed geometry and camera movement in the scene. For example, a hand-held camera walking down a crowded sidewalk will be difficult, if not impossible, to Camera Track. Camera tracking also provides very little useful information from a panning shot, and it does not like camera zooms.

AE's motion and corner pin tracking is also very limited. I cannot recall the last time I used either of these tools. 

Mocha AE has very good planar tracking and can also produce good camera tracking results, but to use the tools efficiently, one requires extensive training and understanding of the process.

Mocha Pro, in combination with SynthEyes, can simultaneously camera track, object track, and mesh track some fairly complex shots. It is, by far, the most versatile and effective tracking solution I have used.

If you have anamorphic or non-square pixel footage, remove the distortion before you run motion tracking. This usually also requires you to pre-compose before running the trackers.

Here are some hints to simplify your motion tracking. 

1. To improve the track's accuracy, add color correction and detail enhancement. After adding the color correction, pre-compose, moving all attributes and trimming the shot before you run trackers on the pre-comp. You can turn off the color correction later if you need to.
2. You can mask moving objects that may foul up your camera track before you run a tracker on the pre-comp. Removing the distractions that will foul up the track is always a good idea.
3. Sometimes, you have to break up a shot into sections that will track. If you get a lot of errors, try another approach.
4. If you use Camera Tracker, set an origin and ground plane if you have a surface that represents the ground, then use the same target to create a solid and a camera. Solids are better to add than nulls or text because you can easily see if the track is going to be accurate and the perspective changes are accurate. 

I hope that helps. I created a tutorial that shows one of the many tracking options available using Mocha AE. I hope this gives you some ideas. I hope you enjoy it.