Alan Okey
5
COW Coins
2
DaVinci Coins
Forum Replies Created
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This is fairly simple in a node-based compositor. The basic technique would involve creating a core matte and expanding it using a MinMax node.
Conduit is a great, inexpensive node-based compositing plugin for FCP. The DV Garage website has a ton of useful tutorials that will get you up to speed on node-based compositing.
https://www.dvgarage.com/conduit-2
The following video demonstrates creating a procedural garbage matte, but the technique used to expand the edges of the matte using a MinMax node is relevant to your question:
https://www.dvgarage.com/storage/conduit-2-samples/Conduit2_ProMatte_3.mov
Also see the push to white video:
https://www.dvgarage.com/storage/conduit-samples/conduit2_push2white.mov
You could shoot your talent on a green screen, then use Conduit to create an effect like what your video example demonstrates.
The newest new version of Conduit is PixelConduit, and there is a free version that has all of the functionality needed for most operations. I’m not sure that it works with FCP 7, however – the website says that it’s for FCP X and Motion 5.
https://pixelconduit.com/index.html
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Please provide these important details:
– What is the throughput of your RAID-0? (Use AJA System test or similar to benchmark)
– What are your sequence settings?
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At $50, Motion 5 is a no-brainier. Its excellent keyer alone is worth the price. However, unlinke FCP X, Motion 5 still does not have proper broadcast monitor support. This is a glaring omission that keeps it from being truly useful in my work. I hope Apple sees fit to update Motion 5 with the same monitoring capabilities as FCP X.
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It’s pretty simple… Just connect a BNC cable between the SDI output of the camera and an SDI input on the switcher, turn on the camera, and it should work. Make sure that the Firewire/iLink output is turned off in the menu settings or the SDI output won’t work.
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This won’t help you with your current dilemma, but back in 2005 there was an interesting app for FCP called Traffic (now discontinued) that used a node-based interface designed to streamline and automate the type of repetitive tasks you describe.
Unfortunately the developer’s website is no longer active, but if you search long and hard enough you might be able to find a video of it in action. I specifically remember a demo video on the developer’s site showing how a series of deliverables (I believe the example was commercials with different intro graphics for different markets) could be quickly processed using node trees. Cool stuff.
https://www.studiodaily.com/2006/04/xmedit-traffic/
https://www.digitalproductionbuzz.com/2005/10/xmedit-is-now-shipping-traffic/#.URglmaXA4wI
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[Noah Kadner] “As you’d probably never finish a project completely in Motion I don’t see this as a big deal.”
Respectfully, I disagree. Who said anything about finishing? Lack of proper broadcast monitoring limits Motion’s utility for broadcast design. The ability to tweak chroma keys or check for interlacing issues on a proper broadcast monitor while working on a composite or a motion graphics composition is critical. It’s unwieldy to have to continually switch to another application to check output.
After Effects, Combustion, Smoke and even Motion v.1-4 have broadcast monitor support. It’s either a silly oversight or a poor design choice that Motion 5 still lacks this basic feature, especially when it’s already been added to FCP X.
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Trash your FCP preferences. It’s quite common for a corrupted preference file to be the cause of non-working FireWire in FCP.
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I’d suggest creating and keeping a ProRes archive of the project yourself, but don’t offer it to the client unless they ask for it or need it. You’d be surprised at the number of broadcasters who now request h.264 deliverables as opposed to ProRes or Uncompressed. More and more, “good enough” seems to be winning out over what used to be accepted as “best practice.”
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You can add 3:2 pulldown using Compressor.