Hey,
I've just filmed a movie, and I filmed it with a JVC camera with the classic movie effect. My problem is, when I transfer the footage into the computer, it already has the bars on the top and bottom of the image, so when I add a tint, it adds the tint to teh bars too. Does anybody know how I can fix this? Thanks!

Goodwill

do all of your tinting and ignore how it affects your bars, then matte the whole thing again when you are done.

I'm not that experienced in Adobe Preimere, can you explain to me how to matte the whole thing?

Thanks,
Goodwill

well theres actually a few ways to do this, including some plugins, heres one easy way. download this matte from my website:

http://www.testpilot111.com/matte.jpg

place the image in a layer on top of everything in the project. Stretch it to encompass the full length of the project. For the next part, i am going to refer to prmeiere pro, which is the version i am going to assume you are using. If you are on 6.5, let me know and i will write a description for that.

anyway, in pro, open the effects panel, go into video effects -> keying and place a luma key on the matte track in the project. in the effects control panel, play with the threshold and cutoff until only the black bars are left and the movie shows through. Try 16 for threshold and 53 for cutoff.

This matte is actually a little tighter than the 16:9 letterbox on your cam, so you will have crisp lines along the edge of the letterbox, completely eliminating any problems with color correction like you mentioned. Hope that was clear and helpful, let me know if you still need some help!

I tried it, but the bars are too thin for my picture plus when the scene goes black, there is a thin strip of white that runs across the top and hte bottom! Am i oing something wrong?

Thanks,
Goodwill

bigmovie, like the avatar, but maybe slow it down a smidge. Watcha think of my (relatively) new one?


goodwill, the bar size problem is the scale. Set it to 89.6% (thats under motion.) Regarding the white around the edge, yea i see your point, i mustve used a different matte last time i used this. I made a new one for you, this one is a psd with a transparent back. Adjust size as i mentioned above, drop this in and you should be good to go. Clean black edge. Heres the new file:

http://www.testpilot111.com/matte.psd

let me know how this works.