Removing Boom Arm Out Of Frame, Please Help
 

Hi,

I'm having problems figuring out how to remove a boom arm from a shot I'm working on.

I have a dolly shot that goes down the side of some lockers in a high school, which have kids standing next to them and in between the lockers in the middle of the shot are two black windows, and when we pass them you can see a boom arm in the distance moving along with the shot.

I thought maybe the eight point garbage matte in FCP could solve this, but I've been messing around with it for a while and haven't been able to figure it out.

Anybody know the best way to take something out of the frame even when the camera is actually moving and the object is moving along with it?

I'm using Final Cut Pro 5 and I'm on a time constraint and need to fix the shot as soon as possible, so any help is very much appreciated! Thanks!

If you have photoshop, you could try this. I'm guessing that the shot you need to fix is very short, set the in and out points for the section you need to fix. next, export that into a separate folder as an image sequence. This will export each frame as a separate photo. This will give you 30 frames for 1 second of video. In photoshop, open up the photos and use the clone tool to cover up the boom pole. This is the long way, I guess you can do the same in After Effects but I don't know how to use AE.

If you do it this way, when you are all done, import the new retouched photos back into FCP, set the still frame duration to .01 seconds so each photo will be one frame of video,

Hope this can help you.

Can FCP export an .flm file? It is easier to work with a filmstrip, than single images.

As Rik says you can use Photoshop, or similar. A Rotroscoping programme is best in this situation. I've painted out and saved several shots this way. From lighting stands to a crew member's shadow crossing the scene.

I've found you can often get good results by selecting the first frame without your boom pole. Then with the selection tool. (one with marching ants) Select and copy to clipboard the area the pole comes into. Then it's a simple paste onto each frame that is affected by the unwanted boom pole. If you haven't got a frame without the pole, select the area, paint it out and copy, then paste across each frame in the scene. The clone tool can sometimes produce an uneven cover up if you paint each frame on an individual basis. A lot also depends on lighting of the scene.

Experiment along these lines and have fun.