I have a clip at the end of a video we shot where we crane up over the artist and the out overtop of the downtown skyline. In the shot though a block away two buildings have the name Goodyear and Firestone on them. Am I going to need to remove these does anyone know? It's under a fairly decent sized label and most likely will show on MTV. To roto this stuff out will take some good 3D tracking and compositing work is why I ask.

Why not just call the companies?

If you do remove them it should be fairly easy in After Effects.

JS

Use of third-party trademarks is not proscribed if there is no likelihood of consumer confusion as to source, sponsorship or affiliation. Given the prevalence of product placement in music videos, it might be reasonable to assume sponsorship. However, without seeing the video, it's impossible to say.

Seems to me that you can either plunk down some money to consult a lawyer OR spend additional time in post. Your choice.

I recently shot a documentary video, and part was in an industrial shop. In one shot (incidentally, a crane shot like yours) you could clearly see a box from a case of beer which was used to hold some parts. Like Paul said, I had the choice of spending time and money to consult with an attorney, or spend an extra hour in post tracking and blurring it. Guess which one I chose?

I'm just going ahead and doing a remove and replace on them. Better safe than have to bother with it later. Its a tough removal where I had to run a 3D track on it and am using a little bit a AE and a little bit of Lightwave

A lot of major corporations have clearance departments (usually one or two people handling this type of stuff). You should be able to find contact info for that company and get it cleared once the video is edited/finished.

I did a piece a few years ago that had Ford logos in it. I simply emailed a link to the clearance guy and he approved it. Much better than blurring or taking hours to rotoscope something out of a shot!

It's probably best to get the logos out. Even if you get clearance from the companies MTV will also have a say whether they would want to air a video that displays these logos. MTV has to be mindful of their sponsors so for example they may not want a video with a Coke machine in it while Pepsi is running ads with them.