-
faking magic bullet / 55mm grades
i posted this in the magic bullet forum, but got no response, so i’m trying here.
basically, what i’m asking is how complex are the grades in the looksuite? would it be possible to achieve the same grades using a combination of effects, glows, solids with overlay modes etc, in after effects? has anyone done this already?
there are one or two of my favourites that i’d like to try to reverse engineer, if possible. but i’m not a telecine colourist, i’m a motion graphics designer, and grading is not something i have done much of before – it’s usually basic color adjustments and contrast etc, photoshop kind of stuff. certainly nothing complex like using SA Colour Finesse etc.
has anyone had any success replicating magic bullet grades?
can anyone offer me any advice before i waste a few hours trying to do this?thanks!
scott.ps: i’ve searched the forums for grading techniques and there are some good ones, but currently i’m interested in faking the magic bullet ones.
-
5 Replies
-
I can’t help but think you’re going about things the wrong way. Look Suite presets are simply combinations of effects used to replicate typical film looks (Bleach Bypass, Process Colour, Sepia etc). Rather than replicate an effect that is attempting to replicate a look, why not try and replicate the look?
What I mean is, find true examples of the REAL film looks you want, and try to replicate them. Rent Saving Private Ryan and analyse the Bleach Bypass look. Watch The Wizard Of Oz and try to match the rich look of Technicolor. You might find you can build series of effects that are even more accurate matches than Look Suite is capable of.
And of course. the other way to do this is just buy Magic Bullet. 🙂
-
I’ve gotten some very nice filmic looks with a combination of color finesse and the remove grain filter.
Color finesse has more then enough control. It will even allow you to load in a reference picture to split screen with your footage to compare with as you tweak your color. -
If the only part of Magic Bullet that you’re interested in using is the Look Suite, you can use Video CoPilot’s application “Film Magic Pro,” which has a bunch of presets for different looks, and is only $49 (for a limited time).
https://videocopilot.net/filmmagicgallery.html
-
Thanks guys.
I do have Magic Bullet, just not at my current place of employment, and they won’t fork out the dough necessary for it (as they don’t really think it’s a necessary piece of software).
So rather than spending a lot of time trying to emulate film processing modes, I just wanted to quickly whip up some nice grades using a combination of effects. Right now, I don’t really care what the filmic process is, I just want to match to look of a few certain MB grades. Though I understand that knowing the physical process would help me reverse engineer a look, I figure I can also do a good job of eye-matching to a sample frame from MB without knowing exactly what chemicals in which order are used by the film lab. 🙂Thanks anyway!
Scott. -
okay, so i eye-matched, using combinations of solids and colourising filters (hue-satch etc), and then just plonked them on top of my comps. works great. :
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up