Lower thirds and a partial upper third

Norman Willis wrote on 7/26/2009, 4:10 AM

I am using the Media Generator to make subtitles in Vegas Pro9a. A viewer who is hearing impaired suggested that I put in a black (or grey) background behind the subtitles, in order to make them easier to read. Would this be a 'lower third'? And how would I do this?

He also suggested that when I show Scripture quotations on the page, that I put a little black box in the upper-left-hand corner of the screen with the chapter and verse, so the reader can know at a glance what he is looking at. Would this be an 'upper third'? And how would I get a small upper third (or a 'bug') in the upper-left-hand corner?

Thank you,

Norman

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 7/26/2009, 5:22 AM

We just had a fun little discussion about this topic last week.

Text box question

The same thing applies for what you want to do, except you'll need two pairs of tracks: one pair for the lower text and one pair for the upper text.

If your text boxes are always going to be the same then you could conceivably reduce that to 3 tracks instead of 4. You could create a graphic with both background boxes placed on a transparent frame (.gif works well for this). That would take the place of both of the generated media tracks.

bStro wrote on 7/26/2009, 11:32 AM

Sounds like a job for the ProType Titler... Not only lets you add multiple text areas simultaneously on a single track, but also lets you give each one its own background color.

Rob

Norman Willis wrote on 7/26/2009, 7:37 PM

Thanks, you guys. Someone suggested that I just draw a heavy outline on the words, with 50% opacity. It looks pretty good, so for now I might just go with that.

Thanks!

Bob Denny wrote on 7/27/2009, 8:36 PM

>Sounds like a job for the ProType Titler

Indeed. That's the ticket.