I need a clock in the bottom corner that starts at 00:00 and runs up to 13:58. Mostly because no one watches 14 minutes of video on the web no matter how exciting I think behind the scenes at a fireworks event is in real time. But when I chop bits out I want them to know how much time it took them to go from "That didn't work I'm stopping the show" to "Ok, the pyrotechnicians have determined that it's safe to proceed with sequence 3, but not sequence 4".

I don't think I'll have a problem compositing in the clock once I make it, but what's the best way to make it? I'm doing the project in Final Cut Express on a mac, but also have Premiere 6.5 on a PC. And there's an artist in our group who has the latest Flash and some unknown version of After Effects. (unknown by me, I assume he knows)

I'm hoping this is the right forum. Since I have access to a couple of different tool sets I didn't want to limit myself to just one. And my searches didn't turn up anything more recent than about a year and a half ago, so I'm really hoping there are better answers now than there were then.

Thanks for any pointers.
Smile,
Kris

I know that After Effects 6.5 has a filter to insert a timecode. Exactly what you need I'd say.

Thanks Benjamin that was great. My artist didn't have that version of After Effects, but I downloaded a free trial (30 days rather than watermarking the results, thank goodness). It took me longer to read the help file than to actually make what I needed. I knew there had to be an easy answer somewhere. Now I can concentrate on the interesting part: figuring out the best way to edit out a third of the event.

It all ends up on the web anyway, I'll post a link when I'm done.

Smile,
Kris

I forgot about this. The site is up if anyone wants to see what I did with the running clock.

Go here and click the launch site button.
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/fireworks/index.html

Then when it launches go to ignite/behind the scenes. I did about a dozen of the videos for the site, but that's the only one I needed the clock for.

I just checked it, that was cool. Glad it worked for you !

Benjamin.