freeze frames and spot shadows

shopjack wrote on 12/10/2009, 2:35 PM
New user question but I wasn't able to figure two things out so thought I'd try here.

Use case: My daughter is being recruied for college soccer and i am doing a highlight video of maybe 40 or so 10-15 second clips. It is helpful to freeze the first frame of each event for a few seconds and somehow highlight which player she is and then roll the clip.

Thus, 2 questions:

1) what is the easiest way to freeze the first frame?

2) on the frozen frame, what is the best way to highlight her...could be a spot shadow for a few seconds or even an arrow?

Other suggestions of how to acoomplish this are welcome!

Thanks in advance!

Jack

Comments

Byron K wrote on 12/10/2009, 6:03 PM
There are many ways to accomplish these things.

As far as extending the 1st frame just move the marker to the frame you want to extend and select save snapshot to file (diskette icon) above the preview window.
Be sure the preview quality is set to Best Full for best results.
Drag the shot into the timeline and extend it to the lengh you need.

As far as highlighting the player, simple placment of a wingding arrow character pointing to the player is the easiest.

A little more fancy way to do this is to ues the cookie cutter effect and a feathered boarder.

A little more elaborate way to highlight the player is to use dual tracks of the same still.
Use Cookie Cutter effect on the 1st track and position it around the star.
Use Gausian Blur on the 2nd still track and keyframe from focused to out of focus back to in focues. (most fun)
Eigentor wrote on 12/11/2009, 4:54 AM
I've just completed the exact same thing for my daughter. Trying to use the wingding on a moving object can be very difficult. I would recommed the cookie cutter. In my case, I didn't need to do any of it because all of my video was directed (isolated on) at her anyway. Mine is about 12 minutes, which I was told was probably long, but I've had excellent reviews from coaches on the format. Also, consider posting it to a web site host, as opposed to shipping DVD's all over the country. I've recently used seemyrecruitingvideo.com which allows you to send access codes to coaches to watch it. You can also add clips (last goal...) from previous games. If you're interested, take a look at my daughters (send me an email at eigentur@yahoo.com and I'll send you the access code). I think the format is very useful.
Good luck, it's a labor of love. As one pro told me, you have to be willing to "kill your babies". Now I'm hooked and just finished my third project.
shopjack wrote on 12/11/2009, 6:54 AM
Thanks much to both of you for the quick and helpful responses. I will gives these suggestions a try!