• Adobe After Effects

  Magic Bullet AE & FCP workflow

  Posted by Dan Graetz on November 15, 2005 at 1:01 am

  I’m working on a surf feature at the moment. I would like to use the Look Suite profiles in the new MB Editors 2 inside Final Cut. I would also like to de-interlace and de-artifact the footage in MB Suite for After Effects. My question is, in which order I should perform these functions for the best image quality/least degradation?

  Currently I have interlaced footage in an Upper Fields sequence in FCP. Should I export these to AE – deinterlace – then load back into a Progressive sequence in FCP and apply Look Suite or vice versa? I’m using Blackmagic 10bit codecs. The film is to be distributed on DVD (PAL & NTSC).

  Also, the footage was shot on DV (PAL) but I captured from a DVCPro deck (with a miniDV adapter) through SDI to 10bit uncompressed Upper Fields. I know DV is Lower Fields – so when I put the shots in AE for deinterlacing should I interpret the footage as Lower or Upper Fields?

  Deadline is looming – any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

  Dan Graetz replied 20 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

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  Andrew Yoole

  November 15, 2005 at 12:49 pm

  Definitely deinterlace first! Magic Bullet relies on the most pristine of images to deinterlace and de-artifact. Applying any processing before the Magic Bullet deinterlace stage will reduce it’s ability to interpret vectors for deinterlacing.

  As an afterthought, if you’re processing in AE anyway, why not process the Look Suite stuff there as well? Then just let the whole thing render over the weekend in one step.

  If your captured material is Upper Field First – which sounds to me like you’ve captured via a Decklink card or equivalent – then that’s what you tell Magic Bullet to interpret. Don’t worry about the original DV field order – the field order is detrmined by the capture device.

  Remember you actually interpret the footage in AE WITHOUT fields, and render full frames no-fields as well. The only place you designate field order is within the MB plugin itself.
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  Dan Graetz

  November 15, 2005 at 1:48 pm

  that’s good advice – thanks andrew

  i normally apply look suite in AE – but I’m finding the new MB Editors 2 in FCP with GPU acceleration is better for applying looks with a Director/Client in the session. Better response, render times, workflow.

  thanks again

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