16:9 and 4:3 elements in Same Sequence

Hey FCP Gurus,

Here's a conundrum I'm dealing with and I'm not getting anywhere. Perhaps you can help, if this problem is solvable.

First of all, I'm working on an animation series, so immediately that puts me in a slightly more eccentric editing position, than most of you "live action" cutters. No tape, no film, just storyboard jpgs. for now, although a bunch of motion-capture material will be coming in soon.
I've already edited 4 X 10 minutes animatics, each one a different episode.
My projects have been set up with a 1920 X 1080 16:9 dimensions. All the storyboards were re-sized to those dimensions too.
I have various visual burn-ins for screening purposes, such as TimeCode, Date, Episode number, Company Logos, etc.

But the small (FX)company I am working for, has insisted on using their own in-house SLATE covering the entire episode.
This Slate (created in Photoshop) has all the various burn-ins embedded, which appear on screen in the top & bottom black bars of a 16:9 image. They want me to use this slate because it appears less messy to them, leaving the main content (ie, the Storyboards and eventual animation shots) free of burn-in clutter.

There's a conflict between the Sequence Dimensions and the dimensions of the Slate.
I don't have the exact sizes in front of me at the moment, but I figured out, that if I create a new Sequence and drag the Slate onto the timeline, it will create the proper dimensions for the slate, which is, I believe 720 x 540 (4:3)
However, if I copy my 16:9 project timeline, and paste it into this new timeline with the slate, all the storyboard images are all appearing on the screen in the wrong format. They're all zoomed in. Of course, there are many storyboard shots that have lots of camera moves / key frames, etc., which means I can't just batch-change the entire timeline of shots.

Is there a quick & fast work around to fix this problem, or is it only really feasible, when starting a brand new episode?
Could it be fixed, it I get them to resize the Slate in Photoshop? Not sure if that would really help.

Not that it matters much, but I'm using FCP 7.0 on a Power Mac.

Suggestions?

. . . surely it would be an easy fix to have them just supply you with a 16:9 version of their slate? or if you have the psd just adapt it yourself,

Bluey,

Correct me if I"m wrong, but the slate was created as 4:3 so that the top & bottom of the screen would be utilized for the burn-in details, leaving the 16:9 middle section available for the storyboards & animation shots. If the slate was converted to 16:9 too, the top & bottom of the screen (where you see the black bars) could not be used as the area of for the burn-ins.

> Correct me if I"m wrong, but the slate was created as 4:3 so that the top & bottom of the screen would be utilized for the burn-in details, leaving the 16:9
> middle section available for the storyboards & animation shots.

That's an old-fashioned way of dealing with it, back when anamorphic 16:9 didn't exist and tape had to be 4:3, so letterboxing on widescreen images was pretty much mandated.

What is the purpose of the animatics? I assume it's for reference, not an online. If so, I'd probably simply edit the show in 1920x1080. Take the exported movie file from that, or the nested Sequence, and then put that into a 4:3 SD Sequence, adding the burn-in template on top there. The 1920x1080 movie file/Sequence will simply shrink to letterbox in the Sequence.


www.derekmok.com