I am very new to video editing and am using Sony Vegas Movie Studio 6.0 Platinum to become fluent with editing/producing before moving on to more professional software. I am working on a sports project right now and I need to point out or highlight a specific athlete on screen. I would prefer to add a temporary spotlight on the player while shading the rest of the video, but haven't figured out how to do this yet. As an alternative, I could also pause the video while overlaying an arrow pointing to the player, but I don't now how to do that either.

If anyone could give me any advice on how to do either, your help is appreciated.

Sure, duplicate the clip onto a new track above, mask the area you want to have shaded, and reduce the opacity of the lower clip to the desired level.

Alternativley, do the same but use the Cookie Cutter on the top layer, reduce opacity of lower layer to acheive the same.

To overlay an arrow, make a PNG file of the arrow you want with a transparent background. Import it and place it where you want it using track motion. You could even put the athletes name on the arrow if you want to. I used this technique in THIS video to censor out a pair of boobs.

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Thanks for the advice. I'll try that out when I get home.

Not sure why, but that sentence made laugh out loud. Your Christmas video clip was great and was another example of how far I've got to go to produce a high quality product.

Made you look. :lol:

Thanks for the kind words. And also for taking the time to say thanks too. A refreshing change! Feel free to ask for any other help.

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No who you be voteing then .

Now, how do I pause the video for a few seconds to help identify the player with the shadow?

Hi again. Ok. Do you really want to pause it or just let it run with the effect over the top for a second or two? Remember, if you pause it, your sound will pause too unless you can pinch a piece of sound that fits from elsewhere.

If you do want to pause it, use the 'save snapshot to file' facility, capture the frame you want, split the vid at that point, move it up a little and then place the still in the gap on the timeline for as long as you want it there. When you capture the frame, remember to cap it at full, best quality. The tool for doing this is the disc icon farthest right in the video preview pane.

Another alternative is to let the vid run, and use keyframes to move the effect around with the person as he/she moves, fading the effect in and out at the time you want.

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