Removing background object using Motion?

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Level 1

13 points

Removing background object using Motion?

Hi,

I'm editing a video shot in a conference room of a hotel. Behind the speaker is a very ugly large, metal door handle (from the emergency exit behind him.) It looks like it's going right through his head. Is there any way of removing this object using Motion (or even FCP7)? I have Motion 4. I don't have any footage of the speaker without the obstruction being there.

Any tips are appreciated. Thanks! 🙂

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.4 GHZ Intel Core Duo 6GB RAM

Posted on May 20, 2014 6:19 PM

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Answer 1

RatVega™

Level 4

2,005 points

May 22, 2014 8:47 AM in response to quiensera

I'm no expert, but I don't think there is anything in Motion or FCP7 that will fix this. I've have similar problems and have always ended up rotoscoping or keyframing mattes, neither of which is "quick and easy".

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Answer 2

quiensera Author

Level 1

13 points

May 22, 2014 2:14 PM in response to RatVega™

Yeah, that's what I thought. The speaker also moves a lot in front of the object, covering different parts of it at different times. At one point, the camera zooms out, then back in. I guess I could change the entire background, but then that probably wouldn't look right, either. As I said, I don't really have footage of the same or similar background without the door handle. Is there a way to paint over the object? It's pretty large, though, so maybe that would be too noticeable.

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Answer 3

RatVega™

Level 4

2,005 points

May 22, 2014 2:46 PM in response to quiensera

quiensera wrote:

Is there a way to paint over the object? It's pretty large, though, so maybe that would be too noticeable.

That is essentially what rotoscoping is; you make a image sequence out of your footage and work it in Pdhop and then re-assemble it. But it has masive drawbacks in that everything must match perfectly or the background "shakes" in playback, and it is painstakingly slow. I did a 5-second clip once that took like 3 hours to perfect.

There may be sone high-end software like Mocha that can do it, but that means bucks out and training time.

Wish I had good news... 😟

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Answer 4

quiensera Author

Level 1

13 points

May 22, 2014 3:40 PM in response to RatVega™

Okay, thanks, it's basically what I thought. The clip I have is about forty minutes long altogether, so it would probably take me years to complete it. I suppose I just leave it as it is. Thanks! 🙂

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Answer 5

May 24, 2014 8:11 AM in response to quiensera

Actually, motion has some great tracking tools which should make this considerably easier. Adobe After Effects is even better. But.... both have steep learning curves.

Do some googling and I'm sure you'll find some great tutorials for this sort of thing on youtube and creative cow.

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Answer 6

quiensera Author

Level 1

13 points

May 25, 2014 12:25 AM in response to Michael Grenadier

I do have After Effects CS4 as well. Saw some instructional videos, but it seemed as though one would need footage that doesn't have the obstruction (the large emergency exit door handle) in it, which I don't have. I'll try to find more tutorials, if not for this project, perhaps for the next one. Is it possible to send an unfinished Final Cut project to After Effects and vice versa? How about sound, could I send a sound file from Premiere to Soundtrack, then back into the Project/Timeline?

Thanks a lot! 🙂

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