Need To Obscure A Face And Body Part In A Video

[johnkorb]

I'm preparing a video presentation which has some faces and body parts which must be obscured. As the faces and parts move through the frame, I'll need to move the obscuring blurred or pixelated or gray area so that it stays over the faces and parts. On the E! channel and some news interviews the faces/parts are obscured by blurring or pixelating the faces/parts, and that would be ideal, but a gray blob covering the faces/parts would also be acceptable.

 

I'm new to Easy Media Creator 7 so perhaps I'm going in the wrong direction, but it seems to me that an overlay might be able to accomplish this, but I don't know how to make a custom overlay (or overlays). It seems to me that the overlays I'd need would need to be circles of different sizes that are opaque with the majority of the frame transparent. What are the requirements for making an overlay? Is it like a transparent GIF? What should the pixel dimensions of the image be?

 

I have to distort the audio as well, and while I don't have it working exactly as I want it (there is a sync problem), the process I'm using is to extract the audio from the video, process it, mute the video's original audio, and add the processed audio in as a separate audio track. Am I heading in the right direction with the audio?

 

Thanks!

 

John

[johnkorb]

For obsuring the face, try one of the screen overlays (toward the bottom of the overlays.) Do an Edit\ Overlay. Change the type to Shaped Masks. Experiment to get the size and effect that you want. Or you can create a picture file in PhotoSuite ( you're circles) that you can then uses as an overlay in VideoWave.

 

Hopefully, the subject isn't moving too much.

 

Okay, Windows isn't crashing and I've been able to use a Shaped Mask on "Film Grain" to create a "blob" on the screen, but getting the "blob" to follow the face is a problem.

 

What I tried to do was size and position the "blob," then advance a few frames, resize and reposition the "blob," then advance a few more frames, resize and reposition the "blob," etc. on a short (10 second) test clip. I discovered the overlay editor doesn't work that way. From what I can tell, you can only have one "start" and one "end" point for a clip, and that isn't going to do for this project.

 

So I'm wondering how do I adjust the size and position of the "blob" every few frames? There must be a better way than to break the video up into thousands of clips of a few frames and then apply the overlay to each clip, but I don't know what it is.

 

Suggestions?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

John

[johnkorb]

For obsuring the face, try one of the screen overlays (toward the bottom of the overlays.) Do an Edit\ Overlay. Change the type to Shaped Masks. Experiment to get the size and effect that you want. Or you can create a picture file in PhotoSuite ( you're circles) that you can then uses as an overlay in VideoWave.

 

Hopefully, the subject isn't moving too much.

 

For the audio, I'm not certain why you need to extract the audio. You should be able to split the video into pieces and mute the native audio where you want to do a voice over or add another internal audio track. You should also be able to click on the Advanced tab and change the voice or add some 'noise' on another track.

You've got internal as well as external tracks. Switch to the Timeline view and select the icon with the + - and check all the options for displaying tracks.

 

The internal tracks will allow you to 'attach' the audio and video effects to a particular 'scene' so that if you move it, the changes will stay with the scene.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

Thanks! I'm trying the Shaped Masks, but the first time I tried them Video Wave seemed to lock up so after 5 min of waiting for it to wake up, I used task manager to kill Video Wave. Then I got the Windows XP blue screen, so I spent a lot of yesterday updating the ATI drivers, then trying to make them "happy." I now have a workable PC again, so I'm going to try to experiment with the Shaped Masks some more tonight.

 

Thanks for your help! I'll get this working yet! (LOL)

 

John

[Guest mlpasley]

For obsuring the face, try one of the screen overlays (toward the bottom of the overlays.) Do an Edit\ Overlay. Change the type to Shaped Masks. Experiment to get the size and effect that you want. Or you can create a picture file in PhotoSuite ( you're circles) that you can then uses as an overlay in VideoWave.

 

Hopefully, the subject isn't moving too much.

 

For the audio, I'm not certain why you need to extract the audio. You should be able to split the video into pieces and mute the native audio where you want to do a voice over or add another internal audio track. You should also be able to click on the Advanced tab and change the voice or add some 'noise' on another track.

You've got internal as well as external tracks. Switch to the Timeline view and select the icon with the + - and check all the options for displaying tracks.

 

The internal tracks will allow you to 'attach' the audio and video effects to a particular 'scene' so that if you move it, the changes will stay with the scene.

 

Hope that helps.