Working in News production has its own set of challenges, not least of which is the speed with which you need to edit.  There really isn’t any time for messing about with duplicating and masking layers in order to disguise someone's identity, or conversely, to pick out and highlight a single person or object in a scene. Cue Andy’s Region Blur ...

As a 24 hour global news broadcaster, we have a large global deployment of ENG crews, and all our cameramen and women have to cut as well as shoot.  As a primary point of contact for any issues or questions relating to FCP, I was called one day by a bureau cameraman and asked how to a witness protection type of effect to blur out the face of an interviewee (who had decided after the fact that they didn’t want to be identified).

Now, great shooters are usually great storytellers too, with an inherent understanding of sequences and how to build them ... but thank goodness not everyone is ready, willing or able to add masking and layering techniques to their skill set as well,  or all of us editors would be out of a job!  No, for those guys and gals you need a plug-in that takes the edge off all the technicalities of what’s actually going on under the hood ...so next day after a bit of head scratching and a few false starts I sent the cameraman Andy’s Region Blur 24/01/07.

Tip: Use the eye dropper to sample the skin color of the face you are obscuring, then carefully push up the tint value. Combined with blur, a little added tint goes a long way to smoothing out the features;.

Tip: To pick out someone or something, enable the invert option and reduce the blur amount to zero, then increase the tint to around 50 or change the edge type to “Frame”.

Even for the non-beginner who knows perfectly well how to do all their own masking and layering, this plugin can be a real time saver ... and when time is a critical factor its a no-brainer.

For those users with a basic understanding of Motion,  then I’d sincerely encourage you to take a look it’s fabulous Match Move and Track behaviors ... quick and intelligent obfuscation for the cognoscenti!

UPDATED 19/03/08:

The new version adds the option to Mosaic or Smudge the target region,  a new edge control adds the option to Frame the region, and reworked controls allow for easier manipulation of the regions size and shape.

UPDATED 17/05/09:

A new version (the Tim McLaughlin edition) adds the option to Desaturate the target region,  plus increases the range of the edge width control .... good for using the filter as a Vignette generator.