Stu's mockup

Stu Maschwitz has mocked up a quick concept about running Magic Bullet Looks on the new Apple iPad on his ProLost blog. The gestural interface would be perfect for working with the color wheels in Colorista. Hmmm.... The future is bright! Check out his blog.

Labels: Colorista, Magic Bullet, Red Giant

New Free Red Giant Updates:

• Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks v1.2: Includes a fix for Mac users with OS 10.5.7 or 10.5.8 using either a NVIDIA 7300 or a NVIDIA Quadro series card. Read FAQ.
• Red Giant Magic Bullet Colorista v1.0.2: Compatibility issues resolved with Premiere Pro CS4 on Win XP and Vista OS
• Red Giant Magic Bullet Mojo v1.0: Now includes Premiere Pro presets

Download the Updates!

Labels: Colorista, Magic Bullet, Magic Bullet Looks, Magic Bullet Mojo, Premiere Pro, Red Giant

San Francisco, CA, June 23, 2009 - Red Giant Software is proud to announce that Stu Maschwitz is now the new Creative Director for Magic Bullet products. Stu Maschwitz is the original creator of the Magic Bullet Suite of plug-ins.

"In my directing work, on projects big and small, I'm always finding ways that the filmmaking process can be made more efficient, more fun, and more accessible to all budget levels. Over the years I've enjoyed a great relationship with Red Giant Software, who have taken these ideas and turned them into tools that the world can enjoy. It's great to make that relationship official," said Stu Maschwitz.

"The Magic Bullet vision is to create software that gives any production, regardless of budget, the look of a high-end feature film. We are immensely pleased that Stu is dedicating his time and vision to enhance and grow the Magic Bullet tools in 2009 and beyond. He has already begun to work on new Magic Bullet products, and you will see many new and updated tools coming later this year," said Sean Safreed, Co-Founder and Director of Products at Red Giant Software.

About Magic Bullet In 2000, Stu Maschwitz created the Magic Bullet Suite, a set of After Effects plug-ins that allowed users to create film-like output from any video source. Prior to 2007, The Orphanage owned the intellectual property behind Magic Bullet, but the product was published and managed by Red Giant Software. Red Giant Software purchased Magic Bullet from The Orphanage in late 2006. Post-acquisition, Red Giant Software developed the Magic Bullet Colorista and Magic Bullet Looks color tools, which are among the most widely used color correction and enhancements tools on the market. Hundreds of thousands of users rely on Magic Bullet tools to enhance their productions. Consumers turn to Magic Bullet to add style to their home movies and feature film artists add a sense of place, as seen in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

About Stu Maschwitz Stu Maschwitz is a director, author, and champion of what has become known as the "DV Rebel" school of filmmaking, which suggests that high production value can be achieved at any budget level. Hailed by Shoot Magazine as one of the "Ten Commercial Directors To Watch," Maschwitz quickly gained a reputation for tackling extraordinarily complex visual challenges while injecting his signature kinetic style. An innovator in filmmaking technology, Maschwitz is the creator of the revolutionary Magic Bullet software-which gives inexpensive digital video the lush look of film.

About Red Giant Software Red Giant Software offers a vast range of visual effects plug-ins, with over 30 packages designed for Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Avid. The product line features industry-leading effects for designing realistic fire, rain, and water; adding popular looks; and creating perfect keys. Red Giant effects have enhanced feature films such as Angels & Demons, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Mummy 3, and Grindhouse, and added sparkle to cable and broadcast content from NBC Universal, Food Network, ESPN, Disney, CNN, Comedy Central, MTV, and TNT.

Labels: Colorista, Magic Bullet, Magic Bullet Looks, Red Giant

Michael Horton posted the details of the next LAFCPUG meeting in our forum: Toolfarm Expert Forums: Colorista at lafcpug, May 27

The meeting is May 27 and Red Giant Magic Bullet Colorista will be featured. Don't miss it!

Labels: Colorista, Magic Bullet, Red Giant, User Group

Eric Escobar created a nice tutorial that gives you some insight about Color Correction in Final Cut Pro. He uses Red Giant Magic Bullet Colorista. Eric says:

the one I did for FCP also includes a basic explanation of controlling color using Colorista, although the ideas apply to FCP's 3 Way Color Corrector and pretty much all primary color correction tools out there on the desktop.

• Watch the tutorial (pops)
• Download a free trial of Magic Bullet Colorista
• Buy Colorista and save with Toolfarm's everyday 5% discount
• Learn more about Colorista in our Plug-in Finder

Labels: Colorista, Final Cut Pro, Magic Bullet, Red Giant, Tutorial

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 Only - 12am PST - 11:59pm PST

When you order Magic Bullet Suite, you will receive a serial number that will work with multiple hosts, including Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro and Avid*.

*Due to technical barriers, Steady and Frames do not support Avid.

In addition to the Red Giant and Trapcode Bundles, we're offering Complete training for Trapcode Particular from Class on Demand. (DVD | Download) Learn more about the sale here.

Labels: Colorista, Instant HD Pro, Magic Bullet, Magic Bullet Frames, Magic Bullet Looks, Magic Bullet Steady, One Day Sale, Red Giant

Powerful finishing tools for every editor in one package.

Magic Bullet Suite 2008 is a completely revamped product. Magic Bullet Suite now supports After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and Avid. The full suite of tools includes Magic Bullet Looks (including Misfire), Magic Bullet Frames, Magic Bullet Colorista, Magic Bullet Steady, and Instant HD for high-quality up-conversion.

Labels: Colorista, Instant HD Pro, Magic Bullet, Magic Bullet Frames, Magic Bullet Looks, Magic Bullet Steady, Red Giant

The Videoguys rated the top 10 video products of 1007.

1. Adobe Production Premium CS3
2. Apple Final Cut Studio 2
3. Matrox RT.X2 with Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and Encore CS3
4. Sony Vegas Pro 8
5. Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks & Colorista
6. Newtek TriCaster Studio
7. Pinnacle Studio 11 MovieBox Ultimate
8. Black Magic Intensity Pro
9. Pioneer BDR-202 Blu-Ray Disc Burner
10. Canon HV20 HDV Camcorder

Labels: Adobe, Apple, Colorista, Final Cut Studio, Magic Bullet, Magic Bullet Looks, Red Giant, Sony Vegas

Last weekend I took the family to the Harvest Festival at our CSA. They had a square dance band and my daughter was having a total blast. I wish I had my video camera (and a lighting kit!) but no such luck. I shot some (very dark) video on my digital camera and tried to lighten it with Magic Bullet Colorista. I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Remember that this footage was shot in a dark barn by the light of jack-o-lanterns on a digital camera. The footage is also compressed for the web, so it's noisy. No, it's not awesome looking footage, but compared to what I started with, it's much brighter.

Labels: Colorista, Magic Bullet, Red Giant

Claudia Crask of SF Cutters sent me some info about the next SF Cutters next meeting is Tues August 28th at dvGarage, 785 Market $5 at the door. Doors open at 6:30 pm, concluding about 9:45 pm.

Sean Safreed of Red Giant is making a limited stop national tour to show off the new Magic Bullet Looks, Trapcode plug-ins which have recently been updated to Final Cut Pro/Motion and Primatte Keyer with Mac and Windows versions.

As part of Magic Bullet Looks you get Magic Bullet LooksBuilder, a stand-alone application that lets you pre-visualize looks on set or anywhere, using a JPEG or TIFF image. Look presets are portable and load into any of the editing hosts, so the same Looks you create on set are the same looks you finish with in the editorial suite. It's no longer necessary to have a complicated finishing system.

Magic Bullet Looks provides hundreds of options with one click. You can get some insight into this new release by reading creator Stu Maschwitz's blog.

Door Prizes! - Red Giant will be giving away 3 licenses of Magic Bullet Colorista and 3 licenses of Trapcode 3S Pack.

Labels: Colorista, Event, Final Cut Pro, Magic Bullet, Primatte Keyer, Red Giant, SF Cutters, Trapcode

Automatic Duck and Red Giant Software have partnered to bridge the color correction workflow gap between Apple Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects.

As result of this technology collaboration, Final Cut Pro users now have the option to use Automatic Duck's timeline translation tools to export all color correction work completed with Red Giant Software Magic Bullet Colorista directly to After Effects with all settings intact.

"Red Giant Software develops must-have visual effects and color correction plug-ins and has quickly become a staple in the toolboxes of Automatic Duck customers,"said Wes Plate, president of Automatic Duck. "It became very clear to us that customers needed a more compelling solution to help them bridge the color correction workflow gap between Final Cut Pro and After Effects. Our collaboration with Red Giant Software to help Colorista users easily move between Final Cut and After Effects while maintaining stunning image quality adds significant value to customers' workflow experience, and that's a big win for users."

"Automatic Duck makes a great solution for creating a complete Final Cut Pro to After Effects finish possible," added Sean Safreed, co-founder of Red Giant Software. "Finally Magic Bullet Colorista users have the ability to take a complete color correction including isolated masks and exposure adjustments and move them into After Effects. The release of our updated Magic Bullet Colorista 1.0.1 and Pro Import AE 4.0 from Automatic Duck makes the highest quality finish possible with full 32-bit float RGB processing and accurate 10-bit RGB 4:4:4 output in After Effects. This combination is really the missing link for a lot of post users that rely on Final Cut Pro and After Effects."

This collaboration marks the first time that Magic Bullet Colorista, a high-quality color correction plug-in application, can be used as the main color correction tool in Final Cut Pro. Coupled with Automatic Duck, all settings and color correction work can be seamlessly moved to an After Effects timeline. For users, this also means that moving to After Effects allows higher quality 10-bit or higher RGB finishing, as Final Cut Pro only handles 8-bit RGB rendering. Users moving content from Final Cut Pro to After Effects can also maintain full quality for finishing with Black Magic, Aja or Cineform 10-bit RGB SD, HD or 2k media.

Pro Import AE 4.0 is available immediately and is priced at $495. Users who purchased new licenses or upgrades to Pro Import AE 3.0 on or after March 8, 2007 will be offered upgrades to version 4.0 at no charge until December 8, 2007. Users of Pro Import AE 3.0 who purchased before March 8, 2007, as well as users of older After Effects import plug-ins, will be able to upgrade for $195 per license.

Magic Bullet Colorista is available now for $199 USD.

The Magic Bullet Colorista 1.0.1 updater for After Effects is available now for free to all current Magic Bullet Colorista customers. This updater paired with Automatic Duck Pro Import AE 4.0 enables users to seamlessly export high quality color correction work from Final Cut Pro to After Effects.

Labels: After Effects, Automatic Duck, Colorista, Magic Bullet, Pro Import AE, Red Giant

We've put together a list of plug-ins that support 32-Bit Floating Point Color Space. All of the major apps are now supporting it, so if you're using After Effects 7 and above, Premiere Pro 2 and above and other apps of the last few years, you're probably okay. If both the app and the plug-in support 32-bit, you can definitely work in 32 bit.

What is 32-bit color? A quick explanation is that you usually work in a color space of 0-255 - 0 is pure black and 255 is pure white. With 32-bit color, you're working on a scale of 0-1... 0 is pure black and 1 is pure white. The trick here is that you can go higher than 1 and lower than 0 so you have a much higher dynamic range in your images and video. If you shoot RAW, this is really useful because you can pick up subtleties that are lost when you're trapped in a smaller range of luminance.

Learn more about 32-bit floating point color, link to some resources, and learn which third-party plug-ins support 32-bit color. We've included After Effects (of course!), Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Shake, Combustion, Digital Fusion, Softimage XSI and even codecs.

If you're an expert in this area, we'd love your help to expand this resource.

Labels: Adobe, After Effects, Apple, Autodesk, Buena, Color Finesse, Colorista, Combustion, Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, Shake

Jeremy Hanke reviews Red Giant's Magic Bullet Colorista and give it a 9.3 out of 10. This is a terrific review. Jeremy is the editor of Microfilmmaker Magaine and always gives a great terrific unbiased review.

Labels: Colorista, Magic Bullet, Red Giant, reviews

Last night I was reading through the April 2007 issue of Videomaker and they give great reviews to both Boris FX and Magic Bullet Colorista.

Update: The Boris FX Review is here.

Labels: Boris, Colorista, Red Giant

Alright, we'll stop being so secretive about it! This will let you plan a bit more. The products below are the products that will be featured at half price during the sale week, only on the dates shown.

• Monday, March 12 - Pro Keying Bundle, reg. $799.00, Today: $349.50
• Tuesday, March 13 - Movie Maker Pro Bundle, reg. $1,699.00, Today: $849.50
• Wednesday, March 14 - Red Giant Bundle, reg. $2,999.00, Today: $1,499.50
• Thursday, March 15 - Magic Bullet Complete Bundle, reg. $599.00, Today: 299.50
• Friday, March 16 - Knoll Light Factory Pro, reg. $399.00, Today: 199.50
  Also, Friday, March 16 - Knoll Light Factory Pro (50% off) + Knoll Light Factory Pro Training DVD (20% off), reg. $478.00, Today: $222.80

Also, Trapcode Suite and Knoll Light Factory Pro + KLF Training (when purchased together) are 20% off all week. See the ad on our home page for the details.

Labels: After Effects, Colorista, Knoll Light Factory, Magic Bullet, One Day Sale, Red Giant

Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 provides important bug fixes to resolve plugin issues. This update is recommended for all Final Cut Pro 5.1, 5.1.1, 5.1.2 and 5.1.3 customers.

Labels: Automatic Duck, Colorista, Final Cut Pro, plug-ins

Adobe After Effects New York (AENY) first meeting is set for February 22. There is no fee for this event, thanks to sponsorship from Adobe and Pratt Manhattan. They are covering Maxon Cinema 4D 10 and After Effects Integration, as well as Mograph, Stephen Neary will present "Bigfoot's Eulogy" and Aharon Rabinowitz will be presenting some quick After Effects tips. I met Aharon at NAB NY.

They're giving away LOADS of door prizes including Red Giant Software: Magic Bullet Suite, MB Colorista and Trapcode Suite (all Trapcode Plug-ins), three Wondertouch particleIllusion licenses, GridIron Nucleo and Nucleo Pro, Cinema 4D and Mograph, Sorenson Squeeze Power Pack, Automatic Duck, Digital Anarchy PlasmaFX, Cycore FX and more. Wow.... good stuff, indeed.

Labels: Adobe, After Effects, Automatic Duck, Colorista, Digital Anarchy, Free, GridIron, Magic Bullet, Maxon Cinema 4D, PlasmaFX, plug-ins, Red Giant, Trapcode, User Group

An inexpensive, smart, fast, color correction tool without needing to fully understand the color wheel.

Now that you've locked your edit, it's time to load Colorista to apply a natural finish, and make your image pop. Under the hood is the next generation Magic Bullet engine with real-time processing for quick review and rendering of SD and HD media. Colorista is ready for action with industry-standard color wheels for precise color control. Tweak the image further with saturation and exposure to make it balanced. Plus, isolate areas with an animatable mask shape - the easiest way to light up your talent. Colorista paired with Look Suite are the perfect tools for color finishing.

Colorista ships as a native plug-in for all major hosts applications including Final Cut Pro (FX Plug), Motion, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Avid AVX 2-compatible systems.

Labels: After Effects, Avid, Colorista, Final Cut Pro, FX Plug, Magic Bullet, Motion, Premiere Pro, Red Giant, Universal