[Tom Matthies]

Shoot the background plate as you want it to appear in the final shot. That would be the bed with the “moonlight” falling onto it. Then shoot the actress on blue or green screen as you would normally do. Make sure that the actress is away from the green/blue backing so you can light her independently from the backing. It will be a bit tricky since she cannot lie right on the backing. You won’t be able to light her correctly if she is in contact with it. You will need to get some distance away and let the light mostly fall off of her while the light on the backing remains strong and even. Attempt to light her in the same manner that you lit the background plate she will be composited over. Light her from the same direction and use the same effects or gels that you used on the background. It will be a challenge to position her so she looks like she’s floating AND also keep a full green screen in the background. Don’t worry about shooting off of the backing. As long as she has some of the backing around her on the screen, you can garbage-matte out everything else.
It might be possible to build a supported platform just wide enough for her to lay in with pipes or something strong and thin to support this platform. At any rate, if lit correctly, the green/blue backing will drop out and you should see youactress over the background plate. Keyframe the actress and she will appear to float over the bed. You could add a collor correction filter after the chroma key filter and tweek the color to blend into the background realistically. Definitely going to be a challenge to do.
If she doesn’t need to move around at all (sleeping soundly?) simply shoot the frame with her in it and with the desired lighting and then use a graphics program such as Photoshop to “cut” her out of the background and use the resulting still as a graphic elememt with an alpha channel and composite her in over the background shot. Easy!
tom

[Tom Matthies]

I don’t believe that you can record to a mini DV tape on this deck. Most of the Panasonic DVCPro decks will play back a Mini DV tape with the adapter and after changing the playback settings in the menu but will not record back onto Mini DV tapes. At least that’s the way it works with our old “750’s”.
tom

[Tom Matthies]

FWIW,
I’ve known David for quite a few years now and he should be able to help you out. I used to own a full AVR-1 Quad machine that went to David. I dismantled an ACR-25 I had owned and I sent a entire truckload of spare parts to him just this past summer. He should have enough Mk-20 heads to last him quite a while. He’s “The Man” for quad tapes.
tom

[Tom Matthies]

Check the disk that you are exporting you files onto. I’m going to venture a guess that it might possibly be formatted in the FAT 32 format and your files are exceding the limit for the file size. You movie is being broken up into several parts to stay within the file size limitations of this format. Reformat it if possible in Mac OS extended and I’m guessing your problem will go away.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Just a quick reminder here.
Remember to be careful when using sliding rack rails to mount equipment into a rack. A Digibeta is not a light machine. Make sure that you have secured your racks so that they will not tip over if you slide your deck out and change the center of gravity. I have seen an entire rack go over when two decks were pulled out for maintenance. Be careful!
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

I’m just curious here. What’s so annoying about Autosave? It runs in the background, takes only asecond or two to do it’s function (unless you are working on a huge project) and can save your butt in the event of a crash or a corrupt file.
Maybe I’m missing something?
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Oops. My bad.
I hadn’t had my coffee yet so my eyes weren’t fully open when I read the post.
Sorry about that, chief.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

I’ve used a kind of clunky but reliable workaround for getting bins from Avid to FCP without Automatic Duck. Provided you don’t have MANY hours of footage what I’ve done is to make a dummy sequence in Avid by dragging ALL of the clips from a bin to a timeline making what amounts to a sequence with every clip in it. I export this sequence as a CMX 3600 EDL. When opened in FCP, it will generate a bin with all of the original clips from the Avid project. It is a little weird but it works. After opening the EDL you will get a bin that you can use to recapture all of the original Avid clips into FCP.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

There is a post below that talks about a new product; MacDrive 6. I haven’t used it but it sounds like it might solve your problem. It allows a Mac formatted drive to be mounted on a Windows PC system. Might be worth a look.
tom

The link:
https://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/

[Tom Matthies]

You should be able to go to Export>Quicktime Conversion>Image Sequence and export the frames in the format you select in the “options” section. Just select the section or clip you want to export from FCP using In & Out. Export to a new folder otherwise you will end up with MANY still images on your desktop or where ever it is you choose to put them. Bring each image into Photoshop modify them and then save them to a new folder. Don’t change the name. Or at least keep them in the proper numerical sequence when you rename them. Import the new folder back into FCP or into Quicktime Pro and generate a new QT movie from there. Import that movie back into FCP.
Tom