Removing annoying fly from shot...

[keithm1972]

I filmed this nice shot that I really like except for a couple bugs that fly through it. 

The camera doesn't move, so I created a mask the first frame where the bug appears, set it to "subtract", then advanced the keyframe, moved the mask, and repeated until each frame with the bug in it. 

When I click create fill layer under Content Aware Fill it appears to do a good job of removing the bug, but I get those mask dots circled in red above. Those dots appear immediately in the shot then disappear as they hide the bug, then reappear at the end after the bug has gone.

I guess the issue is I have the mask in the entire shot even before the bug arrives and after it leaves? Should I be editing a smaller clip of this shot or is there some other trick to clean this up?

[Rick Gerard]

Split the layer everywhere you need to remove the fly. CAF will work faster and it will be easier. Generally, you never want to process, track, mask, or otherwise modify any frames that do not need work. I created many comps over the last year that have layers acting as track mattes, roto, paint, and distortion effects on them that are only a few frames long. I've done a lot of Mocha AE and other tracking work on segments of shots that are less than one second long. Did one just last week that only needed 8 frames of tracking and roto but the entire shot was just over seven seconds long.

Hope this helps. 

[keithm1972]

Thanks, Rick. The concept makes sense, but what do you mean by split the layer? AE doesn't have traditional cutting tools, and as I think about it I've only ever worked with clips, never individual frames.

[Rick Gerard]

With the footage layer selected, move the CTI (current time indicator) to the very first frame where you see a fly then press Shift + Ctrl/Cmnd + d. Then move the CTI down the timeline to one frame after the fly leaves the frame and repeat the procedure to split the new layer again. This is a workflow that is used all the time and it is covered in the User Guide.