[Charles Michael fulton]

I am just going through a situation where I pitched a show and the client was really excited about it, and they were like, “okay, make us a promo.”
“You mean a pilot.”
“No, you know, a promo with motion graphics and stuff.”
Well, I didn’t know After Effects, and made that clear. I tried my best in the given time period (a week), and came up with something amateurish at best.
After three weeks, I learned enough about AE to come up with something that looks professional, but in that time of getting my skills up and getting it together, the client lost a lot of faith in me and my abilities.
My advice is, as soon as you have time and money, purchase and learn a new program- get 100% on After Effects and then move on to a 3d program.

Keep pushing yourself!

[Charles Michael fulton]

So, I magically fixed it in post. Okay, it wasn’t magic – it was a lot of hard work: I was shooting stand-up comics, and there was a silhouette of a skyline in the back ground and during the shoot I made sure to keep my master shoot as steady as possible. At the end of the performances, I zoomed out to get the crowd leaving – which was the key.

I took the messed-up shots and lowered the top edge underneath the action safe line, and then took a still from the zoom of the background’s top 10% and matched it up underneath the footage. I then feathered the top edge of the footage to minimize the line between the two layers.

There were maybe 100 frames out of a 5 minute shoot where a head or a hand would disappear into the top of the frame. For this stuff I made a matte of a head or a hand as necessary and slipped it in between the footage and the still frame, changing it or repositioning it frame by frame. There are some rough moments, but they are only like 10 frames long a piece, so it’s hard to notice. Plus, the only way you’d notice is if you watched the Quicktime file – because, of course, a television monitor cuts off the top 10% of the frame! So as long as my client doesn’t request a QT copy of the footage, I’m golden.

I’ve only shot for internet vids, so never had to think about action/title safe when shooting. Boy did I learn my lesson!

Lot of hard work, but I learned a thing or two and that’s what life is all about. I hope no one else encounters this problem, but if you do, there is a solution. Just make sure you have a few frames of a wider shot and a few pots of coffee on hand!