[David Johnson]

Thanks for sharing the info you found as well. Just a thought about it … “not actionable under section 1464” doesn’t mean not actionable under any other section of the law. That’s why it’s best to leave such calls to station/network officials and/or their attorneys.

[David Johnson]

The time/costs required to fix that kind of thing well in post is often more than the time/costs to re-shoot, but assuming a re-shoot isn’t practical in your circumstance, you might consider fixing that in After Effects or some other compositing program, rather than FCP.

That said, a couple possible approaches …

First, feathered mask out the tape and find something suitable to replace it with. Using the area of the actor’s neck just to the left and above the tape could solve the shadow issue and avoid possible additonal steps like matching grain, etc. Then, track the replacement to the actor’s motion. That is pretty much “rotoscoping” which, depending on the amount of movement, is often not quick or easy so you might want to look for some tutorials on rotoscoping if you haven’t done it before.

If it’s a very brief shot, it might even be faster to export it as an image sequence and paint out the tape in Photoshop.

[David Johnson]

Indeed … back up your data right away!

I’ve had problems with several LaCie external drives over the years, which I believe are due to the type of power supplies they use. Personally, I won’t use LaCie drives anymore and much prefer the ones that Maxx Entertainment Digital sells with e-SATA, FW800, FW400 & USB connections and standard power cables. FYI, Maxx Entertainment Digital has a COW forum.

[David Johnson]

Believe it or not, the FCC doesn’t necessarily “ban” specific words from TV per se … it is essentially the first line of defense in enforcing obscenity laws that are really enforced by the legal system. It’s role is to keep broadcasters reasonably in line via threats to suspend or revoke licenses. So, in a practical sense, it’s more the broadcasters’ fear of losing advertisers that keeps them relatively clean than it is the FCC.

That said, although I am not an attorney, I seriously doubt that “damn” would break any obscenity laws, which in general terms, consider things like:
community standards (specific market the broadcast is in)
time of day (less strict guidelines during late-night hours))
sexual explicitness (self-explanatory)
context (literary value, etc.)

The bottom line is, it’s basically up to the broadcaster whether they want to allow the word “damn” in that context on their broadcast so you might double check with the Program Director of the station the program will air on, but it should be fine unless it’s in a children’s program.

[David Johnson]

I really haven’t changed anything. I’ve not only checked the output module before each of the dozens of renders I’ve done in the past week, but even deleted and recreated the output module, as well as reset the preferences. Perhaps AE’s PNG codec has somehow become corrupted … don’t know what else to do so I’m going to try replacing it with the one from the identical machine tomorrow. Thanks.

[David Johnson]

ProRes is a great codec for editors to work with and it sounds like the client said they want MP4 deliverables so I’m not sure I understand what codec recommendations you need. Is there any reason you don’t want to just use QuickTime Pro to make the MP4s?

By the way, when I take my car to my mechanic to fix, I don’t try to tell him which tools he should use to fix it.

[David Johnson]

Thanks Todd.

[Todd Kopriva] “it works fine when composited—which is what matters, right?”

Yes, but I’m making a bunch of individual graphics at home that I’ll later composite in FCP at work so I need to be able to check my work accurately.

And, I’m using the same custom render settings and output modules I’ve always used, which are set to premultiplied, so why would I be getting straight channels all the sudden when I haven’t changed anything?

[David Johnson]

You could nest your edited sequence into a new sequence, then apply the film look effects to the new sequence.

[David Johnson]

It depends on the codecs you’re using … if your sequence is using a lossless codec and you export it to a MOV using “current settings”, then re-import it to another sequence that is of the same lossless codec, no, you will not lose any quality.

You’ll know if your MOV and new sequence are of different codecs because FCP will show a render line where the re-imported MOV is in the timeline. One of several ways to avoid that is to duplicate the original sequence and delete the media from the duplicate’s timeline, then use that duplicate to put the imported MOV into.

[David Johnson]

You should be able to just go to AE’s “Animation” menu, select “Apply Animation Preset” and navigate to the preset you want within the presets folder … is that not working?