Okay. So I have a dolly shot following a character walking down the street. I have decided after shooting that I want some objects in color and some in b&w. I know how to do this in FCP by using the limit effect. The problem is that some of the colors of the houses as well as the sidewalk and telephone pole are similar enough to the items I want in color that they don't desaturate. I have included a screenshot. I would like the toy in his hand and the broom to be in color and the rest in b&w. Can someone please show me how to this? I am working in 1440x1080i in HDV.
Do an online search for rotoscoping. You can use Motion for this. If you have it, you can also use Shake or After Effects. Motion will do just fine. But it's a labor intensive process. You have to draw a mask around the objects you want to be affected, and then track and adjust those masks as the objects move across the frame. If your footage is perfectly steady, you may be able to interpolate some of it. If not, you'll have to adjust the masks frame by frame. The best think you have going for you is that both the broom and the truck are next to no saturation colors. So you can feather the masks and you won't see the bleed. The tricky area will be when the broom is over the yellow part of the house, if it ever gets there. Otherwise, the snow, and the black jacket will not show the mask bleed. Good luck!
Stack the video over itself in the timeline. In the top layer, use masks to crop out just the truck and the broom then do your color correct. You'll have to animate them over time to keep up with the movement of the dolly.
I looked into Motion but I am not at all familiar with it. The 8 point matte actually works quite well as I have used it just for the truck. How do I use one for the truck and one for the broom at the same time? It seems that I can only use one at a time. Is this correct?
Hi-
Put the completely B&W clip on V1.
Put the same clip with the broom colored, restricted by your 8-Point Garbage matte on V2.
Put the same clip with the truck colored, restricted by your 8-Point Garbage matte on V3.