player models disappearing in recams

I mean sometimes they don't even appear period until they die. is there ANYTHING I can do about this or is this just a fact of HL2DM moviemaking life?

that's something you will have to put up with....
Only thing I can think of is doing a recam, while looking at the direction where the player ISN'T, so then when they are appearing cuz they are dieing, move the angle of the camera.... so it doesn't look o fucked up...but apart from that there isn't much you can do.
Other options are use a source tv demo, or ask someone else who was in that match like a mate, and use his demo to recam ( if possible )
GL...

Correct, this is a feature of the source engine. It wont render the player model if it is in certain locations that are out of line of site in order to improve performance and to reduce the consistency of wall hacks.

Record source tv demos whenever you can is the best advice I can give unfortunately.
The frag vid community is pretty used to seeing it tho, so as long as you keep the recam quick, nobody will really mind.

More appropriately it is out of VIS not sight, you can still see people who are out of line of site so long as they are within what is called VIS. But yes you cannot do anything about it that I know of. When $W made our video we always tried to record personal demos and source TVs. But I understand if you do not have a server or no one like to play on it that it may be difficult.

Yeah that's it, I just couldn't remember the name.