What is Free?

OK.  This is the last product post for awhile.  The reason why I am including it is simple.  We, as media producers, are always yammering about how to actually make money off of our creations. Recent theory seemed to be: give it away now and then someday you'll be able to charge for it or get ad revenue...... now everyone is talking about social and using social to make money.  I still think that sometimes it's just better to make a good product and for people to PAY FOR IT.

Red Giant (and Stu Maschwitz) created a neat product awhile ago, Plastic Bullet, the first (that I know of) iPhone app for easily applying looks to your iPhone photos.  Totally worth paying for, yes?  Hmmm, then some other company came along and made a "free" product along the same lines, supported by annoying adds in the interface, promoted the heck out of it and got some VC money.  It's a fine product, and if you want to get tied into that company's social media experience (which they are no doubt working very hard at monetizing) go for it.  But do I really need a log in to play with some images I've taken with my phone and then wonder how yet another area of my life is being harvested electronically?

Personally, I just want to take pictures and use a clean interface to have fun with them.  And maybe send a couple to friends....and not have every aspect of my personal creativity/relationships commoditized.

Anyway, Plastic Bullet is on sale for a few days at the iTunes store for $.99.  I own it and, despite the recent spate of Red Giant posts, have no relationship with them.  Their products just keep crossing my path recently and I still like to root for the little guy because, well, I'm a little guy.

Also, I recently completed a substantive project using Colorista II.  A post will be coming soon about the good, the not so good and the just plain different of using it versus other color grading products.  I have sent a couple of emails to Stu asking about some technical questions I have about the product. My biggest concern is how it clamps video to make it what appears to broadcast safe.  Hopefully, I will hear back from him before I do the post. 

Magic Bullet Colorista II

You looking at me?

I'm not big into promoting products.  However, every once in a while I do find tools that are worth mentioning.  Red Giant has quietly done a great job of building, and improving, their product line.  The Magic Bullet line, especially Colorista, is really starting to become a "must have" for, indies, editors and colorists.  One great thing is that they are compatible with Final Cut, After Effects and Premiere.  Why would you want an additional color correcting tool when you have perfectly good ones in Final Cut (Color) and After Effects (Color Finesse) or now, DaVinci Resolve?

Using Color (or DaVinci) requires a commitment.  They are professional color grading tools, the timeline needs to be prepared for ingestion and the interface is daunting for people with a limited color grading background.  Some projects, either due to the time or budget constraints, are just not worth the effort of going through that process.  Obviously, the flip side to this is if you really want to do more complicated work, then you are going to want to go through the effort of putting a sequence into Color, DaVinci or Color Finesse.  However, there are times when you just need to get things done and you want to keep the sequence in your editing software.  This is when Colorista comes into play.

I won't go into all the features of Colorista.  Red Giant, to their credit, have done an outstanding job of posting tutorials showing Colorista's features and how to use the product efficiently.  The new version has added some nice functionality (particularly the keyer) and makes it possible to do some pretty complicated corrections within Final Cut.  That said, having the tools and being a good colorist are not the same thing and not having basic tools, like a calibrated monitor, make it hard to create predictable (as in you are sure that what you are seeing is what is actually there) results.  The level of analysis and technical/artistic skill of a trained colorist cannot be replicated by a piece of software.

I really like Stu Maschwitz's tutorials, they are plain language and are geared towards just getting the job done for do-it-yourself indy film makers.  It is also fascinating to watch other colorists' thought processes while working and Stu has some quite interesting insights.  That said, his approach is just that, one approach and one set of eyes and I encourage anyone who uses the software to read further and play around with it to create their own vision.  One of the joys of this business is that watching and analyzing films is considered "work."  The other thing to note is that the workflow/interface used in Colorista varies a little bit from most "pro" color grading tools.  It's neither a good thing or a bad thing and I think that Stu deserves recognition for designing a product that is different and communicating directly with his end users about using it efficiently.

I own (and have paid for) and use Magic Bullet Colorista, Grinder, Looks, Mojo and DeNoiser.  For the do-it-yourself film maker, they open up a whole world of exploration and looks that previously was inaccessible.  For the working professional they are useful professional tools that you can add to your tool bag and use when they are the most efficient solution.

Interesting Color Correction Tutorial

Stu Maschwitz, now of Red Giant Software, has posted a nice color correction tutorial on Creative Cow. He goes through the process of emulating the look of a few of this year's summer blockbusters. Even though he uses Magic Bullet and Colorista software in After Effects, this tutorial is applicable to any software.

Even if you aren't going to do a lot of color correcting, this is quite interesting to watch because he gives you a primer on how to look at and dissect the color palette of film images. It is also fascinating to watch the process of a colorist, how they fiddle with things, etc. As a film maker, it will also help you be able to speak more intelligently with your colorist.

I think I am going to bite the bullet, pardon the pun, and buy Colorista. I already own Magic Bullet Looks (which I've used mostly for brainstorming looks) and work in Apple's Color, but I can see how useful Colorista is, particularly as a complement to Looks. The main value I see in Colorista (in Final Cut) is that it is a tool that you can use within Final Cut Pro (with vignette tracking!!). Color is amazing, but sometimes you don't want to take the time to roundtrip things in and out of FCP, especially if it's not too complicated of a correction (but more complicated than the 3 Way color corrector can handle). Roundtripping requires a bit of preparation, particularly on a long timeline with motion graphics, still photos, etc.

The other tool that he used which I found cool was the Hue/Saturation effect in After Effects. I didn't know that it was hidden in there. You can define what the color range is for each of your color channels in After Effects. Nice tool. I am starting to understand why some people like to live in After Effects.

If you go to the Red Giant site, check out the "Indie Film" looks pack created by Eric Escobar. It's a nice selection of pre-made looks for use with Magic Bullet Looks or Quick Looks. They are a nice addition to the pre-set looks that come with Magic Bullet already.