Using Matte Feature of Color Corrector 3 Way to blur background

[Arnie Schlissel]

Personally, I would do this in Shake. You can do this in either FCP or Motion using something like Conduit from DV Garage. You might be able to do this in Motion without Conduit, as well. In FCP it would be too difficult to bother with.

In Motion, use a color key or levels to create a high contrast black & white image, then use that as a track matte to layer an unblurred version over a blurred version of the shot.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Gilbert,
Please upload a pic.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Gilbert Daspit]

Hi Rafael, thanks for your interest. I’ll try to send a pic, but it may be a day or two. Working on a number of things right now.

Thanks again.

[Gilbert Daspit]

Hi Arnie —
Thanks for the ideas. We put together 1/2 hour shows at my job, so I mainly use editing applications, particularly Final Cut Pro. I haven’t been able to devote time to learning Motion and don’t have Shake. However I do have Adobe After Effects (vers. 6.5, they haven’t updated me in a while) and since you mentioned track mattes, I’m wondering if what you mentioned can be done in AE?

Thanks

[Arnie Schlissel]

you can certainly do it in AE, but it involves precomposing, which I find to be a pain.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Gilbert Daspit]

Thanks, I’ll probably give that a try. Maybe I’ll post there and see what people have to say.

[David Roth weiss]

[Gilbert Daspit] “I’m wondering if what you mentioned can be done in AE?
“

Gilbert,

Let me be the voice of reason here, as no one has yet expressed the degree of difficulty involved, especially if you’ve never done rotoscope work before and if you only have After Effects.

First, without the proper application, such as Shake, Combustion, or Nuke, “roto” work is difficult, even for experts, and even on still images. On moving video, without the right tools, it’s extremely tedious and extremely difficult, and a beginner would find it darned near impossible to achieve a useable result that has no noticeable errors along the edge or hairline of a moving human being. And, that will be certain to detract far more than any object on the wall behind.

Post a still here when you get a chance, but realistically, the odds of your being able to “effectively” rotoscope that problem away over the course of an interview is about zero.

I would suggest that you try rotoscoping a single still image first, just to see how tough that is. Then, once you have a feel for that, start extrapolating, and consider the movement involved, and multiply that times the number of individual video frames, because you’ll have to make miniscule adjustments on every single one.

In any case, sorry to be so pessimistic, but I’m just trying insert a bit of reason here so your expectations aren’t too high..

Meanwhile, I do wish you luck,
David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Gilbert Daspit]

I just ran into a similar reply on the AE forum. I didn’t realize I was entering the realm of rotoscoping. I know what it is and haven’t ever tried it because I don’t have the time for it. I fuess if there’s nothing outside of Rotoscoping to be done, then I’ll do nothing.

Thanks

[David Roth weiss]

[Gilbert Daspit] “if there’s nothing outside of Rotoscoping to be done, then I’ll do nothing.”

It’s possible that you might be able to simply put a soft-edged ellipse (circle) around the head of you subject and effect the area outside the head either by color-correcting, or softening with a blur, or a combination of the two, but until you post a still it would be hard to give you any definitive ideas.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Jeff Carson]

If the camera was completely locked off, you might be able to do difference matte and blur the background layer… The same locked off shot of the set WITHOUT the subject would be an ideal way to do this.

Dual 3Gb Mac Pro Intel 8 Core, 18GB RAM, OS 10.5.6, QT 7.6, FCP2 6.0.5, AE 9, CS4, AJA ioHDv6