Microfilmmaker Magazine - Tips & Tricks - The Final Cut Flyswatter: Using Masks to Delete Problems in FCP, Pg. 4 of 5


	*Article: The Final Cut Flyswatter, Pg. 4*

In order to clean things up a little bit, you need to first remove the double sets of audio. Do this by pressing Shift L which allows you to choose the video and audio separately. Highlight the audio in the third and fourth tracks and then delete it. Press Shift L again in order to toggle back to the mode you were in before.

The video clip in V1 still has a filter on it, and we want to get rid of this filter.
Double click on the clip in V1 and it will appear in the Viewer. Go to the filters tab, highlight the filter, and then delete it.

At this point your image seems to be right where you started. Even though the bug has been removed from V2, the missing portion of V2 is backed up by what is revealed in V1: the very bug you were trying to get rid of. The clips in the V1 and V2 are exactly the same shots, just one of them has a hole in it.

Here is where the fun begins

Select the slip tool from the tool window, or simply press s.

Place the slip tool over your initial clip in V1 and slide the clip left or right by a few frames. You will see the bug disappear. What you have done is slipped either forward or backward in time to a place where there was no bug behind him. A bugless background is revealed through the window you created with the Matte:Shape.

Here is what the final result looks like.

Debugging Part 2: (When the bug is in front of the face.)
Once the bug is in front of his face, things get a little harder because his face is moving around. You cannot simply block off a large area. Instead you will need to go frame by frame.

Step 1 is to cut up the next few frames into one frame intervals. Do this with the Razor Blade (the shortcut for this tool is 'b' for 'blade')

Using the first of the one-frame clips that you have made, isolate the bug just like you did in part one by applying a Mask Shape filter. Choose EFFECTS:VIDEO FILTERS:MATTE:MASK SHAPE and it will be applied to the one frame clip.

This time also apply EFFECTS:VIDEO:FILTERS:MATTE:MASK FEATHER. This will help soften the edges of your trickery - the back will blend in better with the front.

Once again copy this one frame clip. Move the actual clip to V2 and then paste the copied version into V1. Be sure to delete the filters that you had placed on it as well as any doubled up audio. This is all exactly what was done in part 1.

Once again you are right back where you started. Just like in part one, you have taken out the fly in V2 only to have the fly in V1 show through the hole in V2.

And, once again you are going to use the slip tool to move the V1 clip left and right until the fly is no longer in V1. But unlike Part 1, there is an added step.