[John Graves]

Thanks, Dave. I think your advice is right on target.

~ J

“Life is good, as long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time.”

-anonymous gamer

[John Graves]

Sorry Dave, that link didn’t lead anywhere. Syntax issue?

I appreciate your detailed response.

My client has responded with this:

“We have found some success by taking gif images, loading them into Adobe Photoshop, turning them into RGB (and not indexed) and then saving them with the extension .psd

It seems that AfterEffects _will_ take gifs with transparency provided you turn them into an Adobe-like product. AfterEffects does not allow transparency with any images which end with the .gif extension. We suspect that this might be a deliberate corporate decision.”

-John

“Life is good, as long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time.”

-anonymous gamer

[John Graves]

Alright thanks. I’ll try to grab the image sequence and move it altogether, although I am unacquainted with how to do that.

John

“Life is good, as long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time.”

-anonymous gamer

[John Graves]

I resolved my problems, but I have reached these conclusions:

1. Thumb or USB drives may not be formatted to accept files in excess of 4 gigs.
2. USB drives are often slow when transferring data.
3. I need to install a USB 2 driver or get the USB interface problem resolved on my XP system.
4. Data video files when burned to perfectly good DVDs can get damaged.
5. I have to set in and out points to output video from a timeline (not just click on and select the segment desired (duh)

regards

John

“Life is good, as long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time.”

-anonymous gamer

[John Graves]

OH yeah, it was the setting of the I O points. How did I miss that.

thx

J

“Life is good, as long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time.”

-anonymous gamer

[John Graves]

Here may be the rub. When I import as footage, ‘sequence not available’ is greyed out. These gifs will not import as a sequence. The file size is 2800×1600.

Furthermore, when I try to drag the folder containing the numbered GIF sequence into the projec window, AE says “After Effects error: file cannot be imported — files of type “” cannot be used as sequences.

John

[John Graves]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Some super ideas here. I think sometimes all it takes is a certified letter to get em to crumble.

avantis

“Life is good, as long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time.”

-anonymous gamer

[John Graves]

Thanks, guys, your advice is awesome. Yeah, of course my recaptured rights are non-exclusive. No way am I contemplating depriving them of their rights to use the music on that earlier 35 feature.

Oh and by the way, the outstanding $4700 is for work that was already done. It was a pay as you go situation, unlike most other jobs which are 50 percent up front and 50 on delivery. So I think I do have a right to be somewhat sore.

Here’s how I think it might work, either

A) I confront them with the music rights as an escape for them and they capitulate immediately, which is happy for all concerned or…

B) I take them to small claims, the judge grants me the settlement, which in effect gives me the legal right to use my masters for anything I need.

Perhaps this is the essence of my question: What happens after I win in small claims? What legal document or authorization do I need to comfortably use my masters?

thanks

avantis

[John Graves]

Alright, thanks. I think I will reinstall on an alternate boot drive.

avantis

[John Graves]

I think it was 6.5.2, pretty sure. And now I am on 7.2 Quicktime.

I tried the Quicktime 6.5.2 reinstaller from Apple but it won’t let me install on my Mac HD. All drives have a ! exclamation mark — no go.

Perhaps if I reinstalled FCP. I already tried trashing prefs.

avantis