and the moral is

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Don't leave a big pile of dolly track right smack in the middle of a master shot
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/Dolly.gif
and you won't have to spend half your life figuring out how to matte it out!
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/nodolly.gif
LOL, -- it was only my first short, though http://users.pandora.be/ramones/emoticon/embarrasment.gif

[OLBoy]

How did you Matte it out ?

[Chris Messineo]

Nice fix though.

Chris

[Jeremy Ordan]

Great grabs!

[Luis Caffesse]

I feel your pain.
The best compositing work I've ever done goes without notice, because it was spent matting gear out of shots.
:)

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

How did you Matte it out ?
I made a blank slug clip above the other clip in the timeline and used an eight point garbage matte.

I got away with a lot because it was basically black in that part f the frame.

I tried to color them out frame by frame in photoshop but that sucked cuz it looked like - well hand drawn animation and you'd see outline of the the black blob constantly sort of swirling over there.

[OLBoy]

Thanks, It's good to know how to cover up any future mistakes I will make.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Good luck -- though like I said I was very lucky because it was all black over there -- hardly a fixall solution that I have.

Sounds like Luis is the pro at this.

(just rememebered, not only my 1st short, but first shot we did on my first short)

[Luis Caffesse]

If I were a pro at all I wouldn't be matting crap out of my shots.
:)

Not sure if being a pro at this is actually a compliment though...hmmm.
Just be glad it was a static shot.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

If I were a pro at all I wouldn't be matting crap out of my shots.
:)

Not sure if being a pro at this is actually a compliment though...hmmm.
Just be glad it was a static shot.

Yeah I thought that could've been taken in a backhanded way -- didn't mean it that way at all.

But the shot wasn't static -- slight crane effect! Maybe I'll get a clip up here in a second.

[Kirk Gillock]

I kind of like the shot with the tracks better. It says, "Look at me, I'm human, I'm vulnerable, I make mistakes." I can relate to that film. As is, the matte version is too perfect. Throw a boom mic into the shot and then I'd pay to go see it. :)