MAGIC BULLET / proxies

[zak forrest]

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[Charles Angus]

I find the FCP 3-way CC works in very odd ways. For example, turn down the levels on all three controls to zero - you will have a weirdly coloured image left. Not the way it should work.

I steer clear of that thing at all costs.

Haven't used Magic Bullet, so I can't comment on it. If you're working in FCP you're limited to 8-bit RGB, AFAIK, but if you're fine with proxy quality, this probably won't bother you.

 

[Johnny St.Ours]

the magic bullet software all comes with free demos- just download it and try it out yourself. Everything works- they even give you an extra watermark X at no additional charge!
I downloaded it a couple weeks ago, and bought it today- I had a PSA that looks just right with a combo of the looks suite effects. Since it's a paying gig, I felt justified, even though I don't honestly know how much I'll use it in the future-
This spot isn't a clean looking thing, so that wasn't my question- but man that program is easy to play with, and like I said, this spot now looks pretty damn cool.

 

[Paul Hazlett]

Magic bullet looks is a great set of tools for doing something fast but you have to watch for the gamma shift from FCP to MB.

There are alot of presets to start from and all are customizable.

Give em a shot you might like

 

[Justin Murray]

I use Magic Bullet Looks and Colorista. I use MB for my primary correction then turn to Colorista (Secondary Correction) for all my touch ups. Magic Bullet is a great tool. It's a very friendly tool, plus the interface is very appealing. I never use the presents because it's for newbies. When I first started using MB back when they first came out, I was using the presents just to see how they would effect my final image. Then I started to use the presents and adjust every setting "Within" to my liking.

After that, I've notice that it was time to take a different route. Once MB looks came out, they had separate Tool box on the right hand side which I can now use certain filters for each situation (Subject, Matt Box, Lens, Camera, Post-production).

Once I've understand each tool and practice with all of them. I started to use it for pre-production material.

i.e. When I'm about to shoot at a location, My cinematographer and I would go out and take pictures of that location and bring them in to MB Looks. Then start creating our own filters to our liking. You can save your custom looks which is great. MB Looks really stepped up their game, due to having a third party GUI.

It takes years to master color correcting/grading. Once you start understanding color coordinating and color theory, you can do anything you want. Like I said, get use to playing with the presents to see what each one does. I really don't recommend using them as a final image set, but go ahead and adjust the setting to your liking. Hope that Helps. Please fill free to PM me if you want to know more about Magic Bullet Looks.

Last note. I corrected a lot of images with so many different tools. Da Vinci, Color, Magic Bullet, FCP basics, Avid Basics, Matrox (I believe that's how you spell it) and a few others. Every program or machine can give you what you need. You just have to figure out what tool is best for you.

 

[Edgar Pitts]

MB Looks is a solid little program. My only gripes are that you can not set levels and that each Look is tied to a shot. i.e. You can not give multiple shots the same Look, and then change the Look and have it filter to down to all of the shots. Each shot must be changed manually.

Edgar

 

[Scott Simmons]

I've been really into just treating the Red like a souped up video camera lately for the gigs I've been getting.

I must edit with _H Proxies, so Color is suddenly not looking too hot, I don't want to deal with the bugs people have been mentioning on here.

I'm very curious about this statement. If you are just treating RED like a souped up video cam why must you edit with _H proxies?

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

I've used Magic Bullet a fair amount. I find the most useful parts of it are the blurs and vignettes, some of the presets are fine as a starting point....
BUT... it does not offer some important things like SDI monitoring out and key-framing of effects. There are also some bugs, like if you apply it to multiple layers and step into the interface, your top layer is always going to load no matter what layer you have opened up in the effects panel. I have to work around this by moving lots of things around. These days the only thing I use it for are some pho swing and tilt looks that I apply after I send my renders back from Color.

I guess I disagree with trying to use proxy files as the final source files, they are not representative of the raw files latitude, your working with your hands tied as it were, with no base line control over color space, gamma space, white balance, etc... Proxy files are for offline use only, in my opinion.

Sending your offline through Crimson or Monkey Extract and doing a proper transcoding in a program like Redcine will give you a much better one-light to work from. Conforming this is not with out some bugs, but easy to learn with practice and it makes a worlds difference to your final output when you give yourself the latitude to work from that the raw file holds.

 

[brandon thomas]

Colorista and Looks both handle pretty well using proxies..

if you are going to do a workflow like that, maybe do major corrections in red alert, and generate new proxies.

then do additional color correction with colorista or looks.

I'd still recommend doing a conform process though for best results..