Have one keyframed mask node affecting multiple nodes.

This is what I mean, and I might have some issue explaining what I'm trying to accomplish, so forgive me if I don't know the exact terms.

I am trying to create a lower thirds where a solid color wipes into view, and then wipes away to uncover another solid color (more or less a slightly transparent black box) which would have whatever relevant text within it. Sort of like the lower thirds that come up on a FOX Sports broadcast (

). I think I have it to where I'd like it in that sense though I wish there were a way to do it without so many nodes to get there.

But things changed when I wanted to add a graphic to the wipe animation of the first solid color like in this video:

. What I'm trying to do is to sync when a graphic appears in the foreground in relation to when the box first wipes in, as I want it in the center of the box, have it wipe into view when the center of the colored box wipes in, and then wipe away at the same time as the center of the box (as in the second video, though not in that exact direction). The thing is, I can't seem to get anything in sync with each other, and though it sort of works, it's not as precise as I would like or that I could live with.

So my proposed solution is to find a way to where one set of mask nodes can be keyframed in such a way to where I can have it affect two nodes simultaneously. Where if I can have the background node and then a MediaIn node merged into a merge node, and then instead of having a set of mask nodes link to the background and a set of mask nodes link to the MediaIn node, and then the Background and Media in nodes link to a Merge one, to instead have the background and MediaIn/Transform nodes link to a type of Merge node that can handle this type of function, then have a single set of mask nodes link to the merge node instead to make the Background and MediaIn nodes be animated in sync with each other the way I want.

In other words, I would like for the masks to be keyframed to where they will affect whatever is included in the merge node (or whatever effect/node I would need to make this happen) instead of having to mask and keyframe each individual node before I link them to the merge node.

I was trying to see if the Channel Boolean node was what I want, but the few tutorials about this assume you know what a Boolean even is or what the node is supposed to be used for, which I am not familiar with. I tried to use the Merge node's effect mask link, but it seems to only affect the foreground image and not the background one, and I need it to affect both at the same time.

I hope I explained my intentions well enough, and hope someone can help me out.

It would help to see your current flow, but I think I can guess what you're after.

The ChannelBooleans is one way to go. Set it to Clear mode and put your masks in the EffectMask input (blue arrow). Any image that goes into the Background (yellow) input will be 'cleared', or reduced to (0,0,0,0) inside the mask.

You can also branch your outputs to as many inputs as you'd like, which gives you the option of manipulating the mask without needing a separate node. In this example, I'm using one Polygon to mask three different Creator type tools, and in the top branch I'm using a TimeSpeed to change the timing on one of them:

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