scaling and letterboxing PLEASE HELP

C

Cheesesailor77

Veteran
I'm trying to lock my current short, but before i do, i have to do something about 2 shots where thing's appear on the sides of the frame that i didnt catch while looking at the overscan image. Here they are:

376739384_852cf7183c_o.jpg


376739381_2324fb9a46_o.jpg


as you can see, the mic is visible in the top pic and there's a little girl in the background in the bottom pic.

The short needs to be totally locked down in the next couple days, but I'll be showing it to someone kinda important in the next few hours so if I could figure this out before then it would be awesome.

The only thing I can think of is to scale the image up, forcing the unwanted stuff oout of the frame, but for some reason scaling and matting are not independant. I can't figure out how to scale the image without screwing up my aspect ratio.

If anyone knows how to do this correctly or knows a better way to get rid of the mic and the girl, PLEASE let me know.

THANKS!
 
I had a PA in the background of one of my shots once. Since the camera was locked down on a tripod, I could export a frame into photoshop, cover her up with additional background, and then put the frame back into the movie, using a garbage matte on the video footage to reveal the doctored frame when I needed it. This might work for your shot with the mic in the background. (Especially because if you scale it up any more, then you're going to lose your action on either side.)

Another option that you could use for the first shot--assuming that the 2.35:1 matte is done in FCP--is to adjust the matte to raise the footage until the mic is out of frame. This is done using the "offset" option. Of course, this will put the folks in the frame much higher.

As for the frame with the little girl, if that's as bad as it gets, I would probably scale her out of it. But you are correct in noticing that FCP makes this quite annoying. The best way I have found is to open another sequence with the desired clip in it. Apply the scaling to that clip, then nest the second sequence in your first sequence like a clip. You can then apply the widescreen matte to the nested sequence and it should work fine. But you'll want to save your 2.35:1 widescreen filter as a favorite, because FCP will not let you edit filters applied to nested sequences (at least, not that I can figure out.) After all that work, it might be work exporting the scaled clip as an independent quicktime, then reimporting it to be used in your original sequence.

The interaction between the motion tab and the widescreen matte has bothered me in the past. If anyone knows a cleaner workaround than the one I have presented here, please let us know.
 
To edit filters on a nested sequence right clic on it and clic open in viewer.
 
thanks for the quick imput guys.

Unfortunatly I have no idea how to use a garbage matte in FCP and it would be hard with the mic shot because the shot pans as the car drives away.

as for the girl, I don't know what "nested" means, could someone enlighten me?
 
In Final Cut Pro, if you create a sequence and then drag and drop other sequences into it (instead of clips) then you are nesting those sequences.

cheers.
 
If the first shot pans, then I would use the offset function of the letterbox matte to push the mic out of frame. You can even animate the offset so that it only covers the mic when necessary, but this can sometimes give you a weird pan-and-scan look if you move too much or too quickly.

With the girl, I think your best option is to scale the clip using a nested sequence--thus no garbage matte is required.
 
thanks guys.

thanks for the nesting tip, because i didnt know that, i made a new sequence with the single clip scaled to 105% (just enough) and then exported it as quicktime. Imported it back in and placed that clip in the timeline and letterboxed it. i didnt notice any difference in quality.

as for the mic, indeed I just used the offset. It was a super simple fix that just never occored to me. Of course I'm not as happy with the framing, but im sure it's something only I will notice and ***** about, i guess it still looks fine.

Anyway THANKS AGAIN! super helpfull
 
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