View Full Version : How to re-create magic bullet in AE.
infokill
03-02-2004, 10:06 AM
Hi. im new to the board here and also a new owner of a dvx100 ;D
I have a ton of question but i'll try to get them all in this one post.
1- not exactly sure how to edit in 24p in AE. what do i do in AE that lets me transfer the 24p footage to lets say premiere and edit it? or does it have to be all done in AE?
2-Magic bullet. cool program but to much money! does anyone have tutorials on how to copy the looks in this program in AE?
3-color correction tutorials. this is kinda the same as question 2. im trying to get the film looks from AE. and from what i've seen from you people here it looks like you know what your doing.
Thansk in advanced to anyone that can help.
Jay_Blanchard
03-03-2004, 10:52 AM
I'll do my best--
#1--It's just a matter of be picky about wording, but you don't actually "edit" in AfterEffects. If you are just planning to show your work on NTSC video, shoot everything 24P Normal, digitize it in Premiere as standard 60i, name your clips & then import them in AfterEffects in a standard 29.97 comp. Just like any other footage.
If you're shooting 24P Advanced & want to edit at 24 fps, you have to digitize the clips in Premiere, run them through a third-party program like DVFilmMaker to remove the Advanced Pulldown, export each clip as a 23.98 QuickTime, import them into AfterEffects into a 23.98 timeline, do your corrections, then export it to movie as either a 23.98 QuickTime for a filmout, or as 29.97 (be sure to re-insert the pulldown) for video.
IMPORTANT--If you don't plan to do a film out, SHOOT 24P NORMAL! As you can tell from the directions above, it's much less of a process with far fewer things that can possible get screwed up. However, if you have even the slightest possiblity that you may want to but this to film, you should go with the second route.
#2--There are dozens of "film look suites" out there, Magic Bullet being one of the best, but alas, also one of the most expensive. Leaving you with two options:
A) Pirate the software (which is not recommended since it is highly illegal and immoral--but hey, so is charging a thousand bucks for a piece of software).
B) Find another option that will do the same kind of thing but cheaper.
I'm guessing that since you own the DVX that you're probably not interested in Magic Bullet for its "film motion" rendering abilities--unless you're transferring existing 60i footage from a different camera to match your DVX's footage. If the latter is the case, get DVFilmMaker for $95, or if you can sacrifice half of your resolution, do the de-interlacing in AfterEffects.
If your reasoning for wanting Magic Bullet is, as i assumed, gaining the look of the presets, there are several other programs that will do the same thing--CineLook (which is also very expensive) is the only other program I can think of that has presets that are based on individual film stocks (i.e. you want it to look like 16mm Kodak 7272). My personal favorite is the Eureka Plugins Suite, but unfortunately I think it's only made for Final Cut Pro. It has a series of generic presets for different film looks with the ability to tweak them to your own personal tastes. It doesn't have the overkill of options that Magic Bullet, but enough that you can pretty much recreate any look you want. Plus you get about 25 other plug-ins for $50!
But if you're using Premiere, I'm guessing you're a Windows users so you're S.O.L with the Eureka plug-ins. There's another product called FilmFX that's made for Premiere. It's $475.00, so a little cheaper than magic bullet but still pricey:
http://www.pluginz.com/index.php?genre=6&category=18&product=0000010257
I'm sure there are dozens of cheap or free "film look" plugins out there--just do a google search. and remember, the most important element in obtaining the "film look" (if you're going for the standard) is to just light and shoot it well at the beginning.
#3--I'm more of a "tweak the controls until it looks right" kind of guy when it comes to color correction. i know there are books about it on the ASC website that may help. And I'm sure Kai could give you some good advice on this topic.
Hope this helps.
#1--It's just a matter of be picky about wording, but you don't actually "edit" in AfterEffects. *
Actually, if the spot is shorter than a couple minutes, I prefer to "edit" the entire thing within AE, due to the incredible manual control you have over everything... It takes alot longer, but I just like having it all in one place, with all the controls and settings I need to get the final result i'm after..."
Granted, this is only for intensive effect/compositing/design pieces... if it's just a straight edit with cuts and fades, then of course i'll use FCP...
...It's all about the best tool for the job
infokill
03-03-2004, 12:24 PM
Thanks Jay and Kai.
Just to clear things up i dont plan on transfering anything to film yet, so 24p is what im shootinh now.
But, when i capture it into premiere and play it the footage looks as if the its breaking apart. sort of like the feilds are separating.
so what your telling me is to export it into AE and do what ever editing i need to do there then export it back to premiere?
Actually, if the spot is shorter than a couple minutes, I prefer to "edit" the entire thing within AE, due to the incredible manual control you have over everything... It takes alot longer, but I just like having it all in one place, with all the controls and settings I need to get the final result i'm after..."
Granted, this is only for intensive effect/compositing/design pieces... if it's just a straight edit with cuts and fades, then of course i'll use FCP...
That's what's cool about Adobe integration. As AE can now open premier projects, you can do your editing in premier (which is much better suited for straight editing), then take it into AE, add bling, and do any fine adjustments necessary. That's quite a dream workflow IMHO.
Unfortunately, this only works between Premier and AE, and I prefer using Vegas or FCP much more.
Fortunately for Avid or FCP users, there Automatic Duck which does pretty much the same thing. You can export sequences from FCP or Avid as AE (or Boris Red) compositions. Very nice.
I'll try to put together a tutorial soon and post it up here.... :)
infokill
03-04-2004, 03:50 PM
;D
A bit OT, but on the subject of editing in an NLE before importing into AE...
I just found out about this plugin (on the Cow) that looks great for Sony Vegas users that allows them to export an EDL from Vegas and import it into AE as a composition.
You can check it out here: http://www.forgedimages.com/vegasimportorder.html
Best of all, while automatic duck costs $500, this one costs a whole 1% of that! That's right, it's only $5!
Nice find Jive... That's a great thing to have for the PC guys
Taylor Moore
03-08-2004, 06:22 PM
Thanx alot Jive...just bought it.
:) Let us know how it works as I haven't tried it myself yet.
Taylor Moore
03-08-2004, 07:39 PM
Hey Jive,
Just tried it and it works great...source material though must conform to AE importing types.... it liked QT no like WMV files.
Best 5 buck's I've spent.
Man, almost makes me wish I was on PC! :P
Awsome. I already know I will be using this plugin a lot once my edit bay gets back up and running.
infokill
03-09-2004, 09:06 AM
im new to this world but whats an EDL?
and any luck finding tutorials yet?
Taylor Moore
03-09-2004, 10:03 AM
Here is the info I got back from the people who made the Vegas to AE plugin...here is how they define the workflow.
Man...5 bucks goes along way.
Here is the link to there site...best 5 bucks I spent part 2.
http://www.forgedimages.com/vegasimportorder.html
The way we use it is that most all our footage comes in some version of DV
in an AVI wrapper. So, we rough-cut the DV AVI files in Vegas, export the
EDL from Vegas and import it into AE via the plugin, add all the AE stuff,
render as uncompressed TGA (usually using AE's network rendering), then
import back to Vegas for final audio and putting together chapters (if it's
a long piece). We use to render from Vegas back out to DV using the Vegas DV
codec, but now almost everything seems to be going straight to MPG2.
I tend to avoid WMF and Quicktime footage formats in both AE and Vegas but
if you have a similar workflow to ours, then I'd work in whatever the source
footage format is. If AE can't import it, I'd probably render the source
files out as uncompressed AVI via Vegas first before doing the Vegas editing
that leads to the EDL output to minimize conversion losses.
Taylor Moore
03-09-2004, 10:27 AM
im new to this world but whats an EDL?
An edl is an edit decision list. It is a sequential order of the edits in a sequence with souce in/out timecode and record in/out timecode.
In other systems EDL's are exported to re-conform or master on a broadcast mastering system.
Create offline cut export/export EDL
Import EDL to Mastering editing system create master conform.
Vegas's EDL are propietary to Vegas and this pluin allows you to import your Vegas EDL to AE for effects.