Ass-crack management

I'm finishing up a music video that's basically a montage of live shots. One of the members of the band plays naked and there are a bunch of "ass-crack" shots that need to be blurred out.

The client wants the pixelated blocks "Like on Cops" (his quote).

Now, I thought I had the filter that creates the pixelated blocks, but for the life of me I cannot find it.

I recently had to reinstall my software and I believe that I lost some of my filters. I noticed some of my After Effects filters were missing from my FCP bin as well.

My Question is:

Does anyone know how I can achieve that pixelated block effect?

Also, if it WAS an AE effect that was doing the job before, how can I get my AE plugs back into FCP.

Thanks in advance

raz

G4
FCP 4.5

Dang! And I thought Buck Naked was dead! There's someone else taking up where he left off?

Filters go into Library>Application Support>FCP System Support>Plug-ins

Thanks Kevin,

I just figured that out. AND I found the filter! It's the Boris "Mosaic" filter.

Now, it's time to start blurring out some ass....

raz

are you planning to track the displacement of the ass for faster "zone pixelating" ?

this should be worth a tutorial on LAFCPUG

Hell, I'll publish that. Big tutorial request.

Motion has a pixelate filter as well.

CHL

francois wrote:

> are you planning to track the displacement of the ass for
> faster "zone pixelating" ?


Nope. I was planning on developing a custom "ass-matte" for this project and possibly others.

It could come in handy...


raz

Too Much Too Soon has a free mosaic plug as well. You'd have to track it by hand, though. Boris is cool because you can use the pixel chooser to track the darker area of said ass crack. I heard that Canopus can do tracking/mosaic RT, is that true? That would be awesome.

I betcha John from Lyric or Nattress could whip one up that would track decently.

Kevin Monahan

the ass crack pluging has to be ready for next superbowl, you never know...

God, don't remind me of the drudgery of building keyframed "anonymity blur" in Avid Express-- back when they limited you to four keyframes. Holy Cow!

And they only supported Photoshop 2 filters, which were painfully slow in rendering and updating.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a speedy system of applying simple Follow-Effects like blurs and sign replacements? A SIMPLE plugin interface sort of like MovingPicture but just for identity masks and background blockouts, with some control over eases. Is there anything out there? AE, Boris, Commotion and Motion come to mind-- these are either fairly complex to learn and master or round trip workflows, or both.

When the Apple touchscreens arrive, plotting these could be a lot of fun.

- Loren
Today's FCP 5 keytip:
Set your custom layouts by pressing
Option>Windows>Arrange>Set Custom Layout.
Access your custom layouts 1 & 2 with Shift & Option-U!

The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: your power placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central
www.neotrondesign.com



Post Edited (08-09-05 12:56)

"Motion has a pixelate filter as well."

Nice one. I'd imagine that would be the easiest way to track the crack!

"When the Apple touchscreens arrive, plotting these could be a lot of fun."

hahaha.



- Justin Barham -

Nice one. I'd imagine that would be the easiest way to track the crack!

Nope. Motion has no tracking. YET! ;-)
I'd say Boris is the way to go for FCP'ers.

I never thought anyone would use those pixilation filters. I thought they just threw them in because they were cheap & easy to do. Guess it's like film scratches folks will take the dog ugliness of the effect & stylistically turn it into a graphic element. Have to admit though when I see pixilation on the screen I'm on the verge of ceasing to watch the production

Dave

Dave, I'm with you as far as the "F it up to make it cool" is concerned. But I think the issue here is actually legality.



- Justin Barham -

JustinB wrote:

But I think the issue here is actually
> legality.

Legality?! More like good taste.

:-)

You are better off using an animated feathered masked blur... a mosaic will call extra attention to the a$$cracks (They'll look like digital hemorrhoids - unless that's what you are going for).

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

grafixjoe wrote:

> You are better off using an animated feathered masked blur... a
> mosaic will call extra attention to the a$$cracks (They'll look
> like digital hemorrhoids - unless that's what you are going
> for).

The client WANTS the mosaic. It DOES call attention to the ass-crack, but I think that's the point.

And yes Michael, it IS about taste (I'm not sure who's taste, but taste none the less)

raz

I think maybe the client may be doing token cencorship for an audience that finds violence & brutality more aceptable than being exposed to a bare ass. It's similar to these idiotic bleeps that are put into programs that are cover up words in the english languaage that some people can not bear to hear. It draws more attention to the words & makes the whole situation laughable like the dancing pixiilation over the harmless body part.

Neither cencorship actually works it just draws more attention to what was supposed to be being coverred up. It's one of the charms of Cinema Paradiso, all the kisses the parrish priest has the projectionist cut out of the films over the years.

Dave

<<I think maybe the client may be doing token cencorship for an audience that finds violence & brutality more aceptable than being exposed to a bare ass.>>

I totally agree. On the other hand, violence and brutality have been trademarks of many great works of art from the very inception of expressed human creativity. Who's to say we should censor either with any particular bias?

Back to reality; The project here is a music video, which is essentially a commercial product, however artfully constructed it may be. So if it can't get aired then it's probably not very useful. Right or wrong.



- Justin Barham -