Matte box

Hi,
I am switching from Adobe Premiere to Final Cut and obviously have some problems figuring it out.
In Premiere I used a matte box file, which was a .gif that was basically two black bars on top and bottom and then a transparent layer in the middle.
I just put it over the the timeline and got the desired widecreen effect.
However, in Final Cut it is not transparent, it is just white. I tried saving it in different formats, including .psd, but it is still not transparent. hm?
Using the widescreen filter doesn't suit me in FCP.
Thank you and Merry Christmas!

A couple of things to try:
1. In FCP, use one of the composite modes on the GIF file to see if that drops the background out.
2. Open the GIF in Photoshop and then add a new background (base) layer. Remove any unwanted background from the GIF layer, then save it as a new file in TIF or PSD format and make absolutely certain you check the SAVE TRANSPARENCY box in the 2nd "Save As" window.
-DH

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General Matte Box Question...

First things first, cucumber. My O'connor O-box is built for holding onto and will take the entire weight of the F55 rig when necessary.http://www.ocon.com/products/lens-camera-accessories/o-box-wm/ I also highly recommend one pair of O-grips. They attach directly to the O-Box itself and do not require any additional bridge plate. If you twist the end of the O-grip to loosen it, you can rotate it on the ball joint and then lock it in to any position you want.http://www.ocon.com/products/lens-camera-accessories/o-grips/ I'll admit it makes for a heavy rig, but it is rock solid.

So with all the gazillion companies and brands and knock-offs, I am very curious whether any current Matte Boxes actually state in the user manual that it is ok to use the front of the Matte Box as grab holds when running the camera. So do you know of any? And... Do you run your camera by grabbing the Matte Box in terms of the total amount of hand held how much of it (percentage-wise) consists of grabbin the box? And finally, favorite vegetable. Gilly

For Sale - O'Connor Matte Box, O'Connor Follow Focus, Arri F5 / 55 Base Plate

Just put these items on eBay for a UK buy now sale. Matte Box http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291517476066?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 Follow Focus http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291517552426?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 Arri Base Plate http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291517347827?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

bump and price drop to $14.5

Good software to know for video prod.

hello, ive been using final cut for about a year and a half and i would like to do some editing on the side. ultimatley, i would like to start a little video editing business.
i recently goit the cs3 collec and am enjoying that a lot but with so many programs i have trouble balancing what i should spend more time on. the last two weeks ive been learning illustrator pretty well but there's so much more to go. photoshop i am pretty decent at. i'm also getting into web stuff so now i am tinkering with dreamweaver.
anyone in the buss. or does a lot of editing recommend what programs are a must to learn and know if you want to edit professionally. ultimately i would like to do films, and possibly some tv (sitcoms, mtv-type stuff).
thx

anyone in the buss. or does a lot of editing recommend what programs are a must to learn and know if you want to edit professionally. ultimately i would like to do films, and possibly some tv (sitcoms, mtv-type stuff).
By the time you are able to apply for and interview for such a job, you will have learned dozens of applications. More importantly, though, is the crafts of the medium: directing, lighting, sound, audio, practical and special effects, acting, blocking, shot composition, floor directing, switching, tape operations, camera engineering, cabling know-how, power distribution, video engineering, distribution technologies, replication and duplication systems, lenses, filters, matte boxes, tripod and studio supports, portable gear, transportation, catering, unions, budgeting and a few more.
Go to school. Forget concentrating on software.
bogiesan

Effect or trick to allow full double exposure

hi sports fans,
I'm looking to try a double exposure style camera trick and I can't figure out how to pull this effect off in FCP. So here's the story.
I will be shooting (on miniDV) an actor who will have a few lines. After he says his lines, WITHOUT MOVING THE CAMERA, I will have him run through some other lines in a different position within the frame.
I'm trying to find a way to lay these two clips on top of each other so it will appear that he is interacting with himself. Just taking the opacity down on one clip won't do the trick. I want both images to be strong and not transparent.
Is there an effect in FCP that will allow me to have both images on the screen at 100% opacity?
Any help is super apprciated!
I also have Motion, is there anything in Motion that might fit the bill?

In the olden days, we'd have done this with a matte box in the camera, film camera.
You could do it in post using a wipe pattern that might be hidden by a set piece, say, a vertical post.
In addition to the suggestions already given, try looking up DIFFERENCE MATTE. It's difficult to get the shooting situation precise but it will absolutely give you the results you want.
The effect you describe has been for many decades in lots of different ways. It is popular in music videos and many of those have blogs or how-we-did-it Web sites for the artists or producers.
bogiesan

[For Sale]: Sony F5 - low hours, ready to shoot, LA

Sony PMW-F5 with only 109 Hours
Fully outfitted kit, in a laser-cut pelican.
This thing could easily shoot tomorrow, or today if you're local.
Ships easy, travels easy.
Outfitted to shoot handheld all day, and easily transition to tripod. Ready to build up with matte-box and follow focus, comes with sony shoulder mount, rails and VCT plate.
Regularly shoots both Canon and all PL glass, comes with adapters for both in the kit.
Includes:
Sony PMW-F5 Body
Sony DVF-L350 LCD Viewfinder
Sony VCT shoulder mount kit with 12" rails and VCT plate.
2 new Switronix Hypercore 98Wh v-mount batteries with 2 position charger (bought new for $950)
Sony FZ-->PL mount adapter
OptiTek ProLock-i Mark II FZ-->EF mount adapter
Sony SxS card reader
(2) Sony 64GB Pro+ SxS cards
(1) Sony 32GB SxS-1 Card
Tilta extension arm and Wooden Handle with Arri rosette.
Everything fits snuggly in a custom cut SKB Pelican.
Firmware version 4.10 installed with 109 Hours on the system counter.
I'm in LA, on the westside if you're local and want to come check it out. I'm new to the forum, so I'm aware a local sale is much more likely.
contact me at rcalkins {at} gmail
Thanks
$14,500

bump and price drop to $14.5

Purple color in upper right corner on HMC150 camera

I could not find the solution or answer what wrong with my camera Panasonic HMC150 camera that has purple color on upper right corner on screen. Hope this community be able to answer. Thanks

Have you done a software restart on the camera?
If you panned the camera around, the purple area stayed consistently in that area?
Are you using a filter, matte box, or lens hood on the camera? Is there a microphone mounted on the camera that might possible protruded far enough to be slightly in the frame? If you remove them/it does the problem persist?
Have you tried manually setting the white balance to see if there is any change?
If you were to vary (in this case, lower) the amount of light on the cyc wall, does the problem persist?
Does the purple area stay consistent if you vary the iris?
MtD

Canon T2i

since there has been so much talk about how to work with 5D material in fcp, i thought it would be worth something to mention the T2i, its merits or lack thereof. most notably, unlike the 5D, it can shoot in 1920 x 1080 @ 30/24/25p, and 1280 x 720 @ 60/50p. and costs $800. anyone want to weigh in on this?
Message was edited by: mark quark

Well here in a few weeks the gap is going to close down quite a bit between the 5D & the other Canon "HD DSLRs". Firmware 2.0.3 is going to align the 5D's framerates with the other cameras (mostly). 30fps is going to become proper 29.97. 24 & 25 fps will be added too. By the way - this all applies to 1920x1080. Further: audio will go from being 44.1 to 48K. AND it will be user-adjustable, if you desire. Finally! Can't yet tell if it's going to acquire 60fps. It may well not. (Press release.)
So the video tech specs on these cameras: 5D, 7D, 550D are all evening out now. But did you have a more concrete question?
If you're looking to get into a HD-DSLR then, to me, the $800 550D looks like a great bargain. But remember, it's not too different from what's going to happen with the RED Scarlet. People like to talk about the Scarlet like it's going to be a revolutionary, $3,000 camera. And it may be. But few discuss the fact that it takes a $10,000 infrastructure AROUND the camera to make it shine.
These "cheap" HD-DSLRs are the same: you spend $800, open the box, and start shooting? No. At least, you need glass. And good, fast glass ain't cheap. Then there's filters, view finders, matte boxes, follow focus devices, support rods, tripods, batteries, microphones, 2nd audio capture...the list goes on.
So if you're considering a 5D for "video" then the $800 alternative looks great, knowing that you're going to have spend some of that money that you saved, on other gear to round out the package. And be ready to baby the 550D a little more than the 5 or 7 because it's got a plastic, non-weather-sealed body.
Don't know if this really answers any questions for you. But you may get more input by posting questions like this here instead.

Making a custom lense hood for HD Video cameras...i.e. the HDR-HC1

i attached it to the supplied lens hood that came with that camera....this one is only made out of cardboard, black electrical tape, spray-painted with a couple coats on it, added a UV/lens protector and i have a film movie-looking camera. (cant show you the picture with it on the camera, becayse im using it to take picts) and suggestions to making a better one out of what materials/tenique? (the shadows mess up the pictures)
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/6863/dsc00815wv6.jpg
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5065/dsc00814nm0.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1637/dsc00813cs8.jpg
Mac Mini Intel 1.83Ghz; PowerBook G4 1.0Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8) Lacie Lightscribe, Pioneer 7.1VSX-526, Polk Audio RM6005, iPod Nano, HDR-HC1

Johnny,
Great attempt! Now you've even got a template you can use to build another one out of some other material. I'd suggest using 1/8" or 1/4" black acrylic sheet (or perhaps even black anodized aluminum) for your next try. The acrylic pieces could be epoxied or MEK'd together and the aluminum could potentially be templated as a 2-part unit, thereby minimizing the number of seams. Both would be stronger than cardboard.
I remain completely baffled at the prices of commercial filter holders, sunshades and matte boxes for videocams. Good for you, building one on your own!

Dealing with vignetting

So I'm editing a short shot on the HVX200 w/ the Brevis 35mm lens adapter .. looks gorgeous, but some shots have a bit of vignetting. Not sure what the best way to take care of this is from within FCP; my instinct would be to duplicate the video track, apply a garbage matte to V2 around the edges and slightly bump up the brightness .. but I would obviously need to blur the lines of the garbage matte (i.e. like blurring a mask shape in Photoshop). How does one go about doing this?

who knows though, i'm no DP! < </div>
You are now, my friend.
Not to beat this into the ground -- but I'm going to anyway so -- try not to take this personally, it's a general lecture: Handling location shooting screwups in post is a waste of everyone's time and unnecessarily huge expense in terms of money, energy, excitement, momentum and patience. Putting a weird aux lens or matte box or filter holder on one's camera is screaming for trouble. Shoot test footage and play it back on a field monitor. Look for the obvious issues like vignetting, flares, scratches, edge focus.
Can't do that? No field units? Yes, this is where we all get into trouble; we blithely assume everything is peachy or can be fixed with a simple filter in FCP or After Effects.
Personally, my common shooting screwups are forgetting to reset shutter speed, resetting manual focus and failing to check ALL the batteries before leaving the office.
bogiesan

When I try and open firefox now,I get a Run box that comes up and no matter what I click I get an error message.

I have had a problem on my computer with a virus and after several days running different programs to clean up my computer and once it was clean the people over on PCHF suggested I do some things to make my computer more secure. While all this was going on I upgraded firefox to the latest 3.6.12 update, and added a fire wall, (Zonealarm). I updated everything on the computer with the latest and the greatest.
I also was running a guest account on the computer as my main internet account and from what I understand the default guest account is not supported by the new zonealarm firewall so I decided to create another user account and then transfer all my user files off the guest account onto the newly created account that would have zonealarm support.
Before this time I had ie explorer and firefox both working on all three of the user accounts on the computer and after all this work I can only get firefox to work on the newest account. When I try to connect to the internet on the other two accounts I get a box that pops up, 'Run as' with several things to click and no matter what I click I get sent to an error page with an error message: An error occured while processing your request. then and error message ....Ref # 97.dzd0060.1291309687.11103569
Ie explorer will work on all 3 accounts but firefox seems like it wants to be hard to get along with. I don't think it is anything bad that is wrong, probably just a simple click of a box somewhere but I have read every thread on several forums over the past week and I can't find that box.LOL

See:
* [[Firefox is already running but is not responding]]
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use

When I sync movies from itunes (imac osx) the movie itself shows up as a box but no title shows. Doesen't matter if its purchased or just done from imovie.

When I sync my movies from itunes (mac osx) to my ipad 2 the movie syncs but show up as a box only with no title. Dosen't matter what type of movie purchased or home made.

Bump - Can someone please help?

No matter where I click a black box appears and on the left side a black box telling me where my cursor is at the moment. How do I get rid of those black boxes?

No matter where I click a black box appears and on the left side a black box is telling me where the cursor is at the moment. How do I get rid of it?

 ▹ System Preferences ▹ Universal Access ▹ Seeing ▹ VoiceOver: Off

I have just downloaded Firefox and browsed with it but in the box headed 'a little housekeeping' the green line is only approx 90% complete. Does this matter please?

Today I downloaded Firefox and successfully accessed my online bank account which IE wouldn't allow me to do so. However, whenever I logon, the box headed 'A Little Housekeeping' appears which has the green line indicating the progress of a little housekeeping frozen at 90% completion. Does this matter?

Today I downloaded Firefox and successfully accessed my online bank account which IE wouldn't allow me to do so. However, whenever I logon, the box headed 'A Little Housekeeping' appears which has the green line indicating the progress of a little housekeeping frozen at 90% completion. Does this matter?

In the Options box, no matter what I set my Home Page to (Current Pages, Blank Page, Default) I am unable to change my homepage settings; they absolutely will not change and I can't figure it out.

Up to about a month ago, I never had any problems setting my Home Page to Using Current Pages. Then, all of a sudden, I am unable to make any changes to my Home Page no matter what I change the settings to. I work for the US Forest Service and I don't know if some program was loaded that prohibits any changes from being made. Any help would be most appreciated.

This link may help - https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Preferences+are+not+saved

Matte box

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