April 28, 2004

MAGIC BULLET FOR EDITORS

Look Suite and more for Final Cut Pro (and more)

This week I'll take a look at a brand new plugin available for Final Cut editors. Premiere Pro and Vegas editors should take a look also, because your version will be shipping this summer. Unless you're one of those editors who also composites and color corrects in After Effects, chances are you've only heard of Magic Bullet, and haven't had a chance to get your hands on it. Not to worry, Magic Bullet is a quick study, one of those "auto-cool" plugins. Before you know it, you'll be creating your own power sets of color correction looks.

Finally, editors can color correct the footage just like the After Effects artists with Magic Bullet Suite. Red Giant Software is now offering the Orphanage's "Magic Bullet for Editors", offering After Effects artists everywhere the opportunity to do the design and compositing, and leave the color correction to the editors, or at least, that's my take on it.

For editors who have used Magic Bullet in After Effects, you can rest assured that you'll find the same treatments in the FCP plugin. For those of you who haven't used Magic Bullet, not to worry, it uses the same FCP plugin interface you've come to know and love. If you're one of the few people in desktop video world who hasn't heard of Magic Bullet, it's just that, a magic bullet, correcting poorly shot stuff (or making the good look intentionally bad).

Bringing the uninitiated up to speed:

Magic Bullet has been used on tons of films, commercials and music videos to get a "look" that might not be available to your budget. Oh sure, you could spend $$$ on telecine transfers of your film, but sometimes high-end DaVinci rooms (or similar) are out of your price range or just plain overkill. Enter: Magic Bullet, a desktop solution to color grading, color effects and look presets . It works with any footage your non-linear editor can handle. With completely keyframeable attributes covering aspects of subject, blacks, whites, gradient passes, camera pre-correction and post setups, Magic Bullet can hit small corrections and change to cover lighting, as well as color differences throughout the duration of the clip.

With 50 presets for various famous and favorite color correction looks, you can easily click your way to a color range to start with (or just use the preset). Of course you can create color setups that the client likes and save them out as favorites as well, calling them up to drop onto all the footage in your piece or in projects that come later.

Quick Start

Here's a quick intro to the main part of the plugin: Look Suite. The Look Suite is a collection of over 50 presets that mimic famous color corrections of excellent telecine artists from all over the world.

You'll need Final Cut Pro 4.1 (and if you've got this, by all means, upgrade to FCP HD). Later this summer Magic Bullet will be available for Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 and Sony Vegas - a dual P4 will be required to push the plugin.

When you download the installer, you'll also get a Final Cut project with the Look Suite Favorites attached. Save this document somewhere local and accessible. I duplicated this file to a secret stash as backup. You'll use it over and over again. This is your setup for all of the presets for the Look Suite.

Simply drag the filter of choice onto your footage. It couldn't be any easier. The descriptions of the color modifications are reflected by their names.

I've selected the LS_Tropico Wash which doesn't just tint the scene, it actually corrects specific areas of the shot, leaving others alone. Note the pink and blue accents in the fan despite the overall sepia tone of the frame.

Of course, this is just a launching point, you can now go in to each aspect of the plugin to manufacture your own look. By bringing the Pre Gamma down to -13, the girl's hair flower comes out of the blacks.

Moving the Post correction from the negative to positive side (+13) moves the image from warm yellows and reds to a cool blue-green. Unfortunately, it's not quite the look I wanted because the reds in the woman's fan are now getting lost in the cool correction.

Luckily, there's a preset already created called LS_Coolish. Turn off or delete the other LS filters and drag LS_Coolish onto the clip. By using the preset alone, I've saved my skin tones and warmer colors (note even some subtle brown in the background still exists), while pushing the rest of the scene cooler.

It's really that easy.

(Source Images found on DMN Stock Resources)

With over 50 looks that ship as presets, there are more variations than I can easily put into this article, including bleach bypass looks, color reversals, diffusions, pseudo-technicolor, gradients, "No 85", and others, including the ever popular "Neo" which is inspired by the look of the Matrix movies.

In addition to the Look Suite, Magic Bullet for Editors also comes with Misfire. Damaged film. Yep. It's in there: Misfire. How many times has the editor asked me to make it look "grungy" with grain and scratches? Adding awful noise onto the clip as a reference doesn't have to happen anymore, now editors can make the filmic look themselves. It's pretty straightforward. Look for a QuickTip tutorial for Misfire in the future.

I know several editors who will have so much fun with Look Suite alone, they'll lose sleep just to play with it.

If you are an editor who has Magic Bullet in your studio's graphics department, but haven't checked out Magic Bullet, now is the time. Magic Bullet for Editors is currently being offered at $299USD. If you have MB-After Effects, you can cross-grade to MBFE for $150USD until May 15! If you already own MB Look Suite and wished it would work in your FCP - head over to Red Giant Software to pick up your cross grade. If you need it right now - right, right now, you can download it on a business day from their site and get a serial number right away. As with Look Suite, there's a demo on the RedGiant website as well.

If you want to learn more about the specifics of the software, Red Giant has put together a page outlining the parameters of Magic Bullet on their site. There are even tips for how to set up your DV shoot in the Magic Bullet documentation.

Ko Maruyama is a freelance animator in the Los Angeles area. Despite color correction, an unhealthy studio tan still allows him to be visible in pitch black rooms. If you want to learn more about Magic Bullet in After Effects, or even in Final Cut Pro, you can find Ko hanging out in several forums, and co-hosting the DMN After Effects forum. Check the After Effects forum for tips, breaking news and sneak peeks from developers.