How can I remove an object from a scene?

Question

Forum,
I am editing video which has a cat about to jump from the utility room window into the garden.
However the clip is spoilt by a washing up bottle to the left of the cat.
I want to remove or cover up this bottle.
I have spent 90 minutes browsing through the six books I have on FCS and can not find a reference to to this problem ,although I am sure I have read how to perform this task in one of the books.
I would welcome any help on the solution to resolve this problem.
Thank you,
Michael Craven

Answer 1

You could probably use the 8 point garbage matte in this situation. I personally think the 8-point garbage matte is a bit cumbersome, but it should get the job done.
1. Use the Razor Blade tool to place a cut before and after the shot with the bottle.
2. Select the bottle clip.
3. Press and hold Shift + Option, then drag the bottle clip up one track. This should create a duplicate clip directly above your original clip. (I'll refer to this duplicated clip as bottle2.)
4. Locate the 8-point Garbage Matte filter and apply it to bottle2.
5. Locate the Gaussian Blur filter and apply it to bottle2.
6. Control click bottle1, and uncheck the "Clip Enable" setting from the shortcut menu. This will disable that clip.
7. Double click bottle2 to load it into the Viewer. Then select the Filter tab.
8. For the Garbage Matte filter, you'll notice 8 rows of numbers, these are the current locations for the control points, which you should be able to see in the Canvas. Start with point #1, and click the "+" button in the filters area, then in the Canvas click and drag to move the point. When you release the mouse button, you'll need to reclick the "+" button in the filters tab. Repeat these steps until you've isolated the bottle.
9. Feather the edge of the matte.
10. Adjust the Blur amount.
11. Reenable bottle1. Playback the clip and make any necessary adjustments.
Depending on your experience with Motion, you might also want to try sending bottle1 to Motion, then use Motion to control the layering.