Magic Bullet applying filters over letterbox

[aerosolcheese]

Hello all, I'm new to this, so thanks in advance for any help. I'm shooting in Letterbox mode and applying Magic Bullet filters in Premiere. I am noticing that the filters are being applied over the black letterbox. Any way to mask over this?

[lmerino]

There may be an "automatic" way, but to create a quick letterbox I just go into the Titling program and draw 2 large black squares to overlap the already-present letterboxing and save it as a title. Then just layer it above any video you want it on.

[aerosolcheese]

Awesome. Thanks for the quick reply. After years of photoshop, I should have known that, but I have been using premiere pro for about 2 days now. Gimme another week. Thanks!

[kecorcoran]

Also, if you don't feel like drawing the letter box bars yourself, there is a template that lets you set them up with just a few clicks.

In the Title Designer, click the Templates botton (features a page icon with a "T" in it). In the list of templates, click the Title Designer Presets folder, then the Mattes folder, and then select the Matte Letterbox template.

[lmerino]

Hey, cool... I like it too ;)

[kecorcoran]

On closer examination, the template-based black bars seem to be a little thick for 16:9. But I guess they can be a starting point.

[disjecta]

Go to the crop tool, apply it to your clip as the bottom-most effect and then type in 12.5 for the top and 12.5 for the bottom and voila, you have a letterbox and the other effects contained inside it.