[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

I believe I solved the shadow issue. What I did was drop the clip into Photoshop and removed everything except the wall by using the quick select tool. Then I saved it as a PNG which kept it transparent.

I then dropped the file into Sony on the duplicate track above the clip and it covered everything. The only problem I had was that I could see the wall as a different color, because the rest of the file was transparent. So, I opened the file in Video/Crop and chose the mask square tool and made the square a little shorter than the mark. Then I feathered it. So what appears is a smooth transition between the colors which looks like it might be the lighting. I’m still working on it, but at least I minimized the shadow, which is very slight now.

I would suppose another dupe track would block out the shadow altogether.

I’m still working on the door issue. That’s definitely a challenge.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Dave:

I am not having the problem anymore, but I do have a D drive that I save all of my projects on, along with the other external hard drives. I don’t know what happened before when my project was disappearing. I wish I could explain it better.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Terrence:

Thank you. Very refreshing to hear. Did you see the early response where there are two other DCP software packages that can be used also. Glad to know that there are developments of software that will allow us to produce quality results without paying a fortune.

CuteDCP (An After Effects product) and DCP Builder(Freeware)

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie to the rescue. How are you?

Yes, my situation is very complicated. The most complicated one is the shadow to the right of the actor. The shot is static, but occasionally you’ll see the shadow of a hand, head or even camera.

I thought of the Jpeg idea and even went into Photoshop, cut out the portion that didn’t need to be seen and left the clear area of the wall where the shadow appears. I saved it as a snapshot and tried to place it over the frame in Sony Vegas. It didn’t work because the part that was transparent in Photoshop became a white background once I snapshot it. It covered the entire frame. So, now I am trying to work in After Effect to create a Prekey, but I need to find a scene where this shadowing does not happen so that I can create the Prekey to cover the area without covering the actors. The only issue with Prekeying is that it is transparent, and I still may see the shadow, but it’s worth a try.

Here’s a snapshot of the shadow issue, and the door too. I have resolved that the door is not as critical as the shadow, because it looks like people are looking in on the trial, although I would like to get rid of it. The shadow is really critical because no one else should be in frame.

Shadow –

Door –

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Mike:

Thank you. What a relief. I’ll read it.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Steve:

Thanks. For a moment, I thought I was going to have to give a yard sale just to get into the festivals. 🙂

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Dave:

I believe it’s a normal hard drive. I save it on the C drive. My computer has an SSD, but I don’t know how to save my work on it. Any advise?

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi John:

Thank you for your response. I see! Can stems be remixed? Like creating a bus for the dialogue and discovering that it needs to be remixed, or the bass drum is too loud in the stem, etc? When dialogue is stemmed, is there a risk that if the synchronization is off a bit, that it cannot be fixed without starting with a clip and audio file that has not been stemmed? In other words, is this a part of mastering the project?

[Debbie King]

Hi Scott:

Oh, I see. Wouldn’t you have to mix down the separate sections; for example mix down the woodwinds, brass, etc? Sounds great. What are pit files? By the way, I have already been having crashing with just the video and dialogue with some bed track music. When you say music bed track, are you speaking of a stereo track that has been mixed, like a stock music track?

[Debbie King]

Hi Steve:

Thank you for responding.

I am relieved to know that I can use Sony for all audio mixing. I do not know Cubase that well, and my composer will be creating the music in Cubase and saving it in separate tracks for me to drop on the Sony Vegas timeline for mixing. Is that how I would do it, if he sent me separate files?

He will create the music for the full length of the film on about 16 tracks so that I can mix the levels of each instrument. We discussed it today and I decided that I did not want a stereo file because if I received a stereo file and it was not well mixed, I would not be able to do much with it. Please let me know if you do it differently.

Many thanks,

Debbie