Talking head masking effect

[John Rofrano]

[Kelly Griffin] “I’ve seen some tutorials that talk about having to copy one track over itself in doing this, but I’m wondering if there’s a (simpler?) way (and one that doesn’t add tracks unnecessarily), such as having the mask only cutting a hole in the blur effect and not cutting a hole in the video content itself (which would then require the track being copied over itself to fill the hole back in), if that makes any sense (?)”

Nope. Unless you buy a plug-ins that does rack focus, you need to use two tracks. One with a blur and one without. There is no way to mask an effect in Vegas; it mask the whole event requiring another event to be on a track below it.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Kelly Griffin]

Okay, thanks John. So, how do I make the soft-edged oval? In Pan/Crop I see a freehand point plotter, but no standard shapes. Am I looking in the wrong place?

–Kelly

[Mike Kujbida]

Kelly, I did that just this morning (a 5 sec. clip) and earlier this year on a much longer one.
The technique for both was the same.
Fr the one this morning. I had to mask out a police shoulder flash as he now works for a different police department than he did at the time I did the original shoot.
Duplicate the video track, apply a medium Gaussian blur to the lower track, open Pan/Crop on the upper track and use the mask feature to outline the flash.
Hopefully the attached images will speak for themselves.

For the other one, I shot him in front of a rather large LCD screen.
The problem was that he was far too close and what was on screen distracted from him talking.
I did the same thing I described earlier but I outlined his entore body.
I had to do some keyframing when he moved or when I changed shots but, as he didn’t move very much, this was easy to do.
You can see the final result here (apologies for the poor YouTube quality but I had nothing to do with that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyaQ-eAIOmM&feature=player_embedded

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[Mike Kujbida]

I forgot to mention that enabling the Feather type and setting the percentage gives you the soft edge.

[John Rofrano]

[Kelly Griffin] “So, how do I make the soft-edged oval? In Pan/Crop I see a freehand point plotter, but no standard shapes. Am I looking in the wrong place?”

Sony didn’t supply default shapes so you’ll have to draw it yourself but there is a Feather Type and Feather % to create as soft an edge as you need. You can get predefined shapes with the Cookie Cutter which also has a feathered edge option.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Kelly Griffin]

Okay, thanks John, I’ll figure it out!

–Kelly

[Kelly Griffin]

Hey John, how do I change the shape of an oval in Cookie Cutter to be any oval I want (tall & skinny, wide & skinny, etc.)?

–Kelly

[John Rofrano]

[Kelly Griffin] “how do I change the shape of an oval in Cookie Cutter to be any oval I want (tall & skinny, wide & skinny, etc.)?”

That’s the problem with Cookie Cutter… you can’t. It’s pretty set in what it can do. That’s where the free form Mask tool come in handy. If you need an Oval with the Mask tool try starting with just 4 points and then adjust the curve accordingly. Since you’re going to feather it, it doesn’t have to be that accurate.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Kelly Griffin]

Wow. Yikes.

Well, okay!

–Kelly

[Mike Kujbida]

Kelly, take a look at my first response as I talk about using a mask.