FCP 5.1.3

[Walter Biscardi]

Nope, not touching it at the moment as it disable’s Magic Bullet Colorista which we’re now using. Also we have about 10 projects on our system and I’ll wait till we clear most of those before updating.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Ron Thompson]

Why would it do that?

On another note..
I’ve been following the Final Touch conversations.
I hope Apple does something with the app…like add it to FCP6, or give us a great WORKING standalone version.
I was thinking of upgrading my Synthetic Aperature since I’m pretty happy with what it does, but I’ll wait to see what happens.

Thanks
Ron

RIOT Productions
G5, Kona LH, Atto UL4D, FCP5, QT 7.

[Walter Biscardi]

[ronnyron] “Why would it do that?”

Red Giant is working with Apple right now to find out what “broke.” It’s part of the new FX Plugs architecture in FCP so who knows, but I’m sure they’ll find something in the near future and get it working again.

[ronnyron] “I’ve been following the Final Touch conversations.
I hope Apple does something with the app…like add it to FCP6, or give us a great WORKING standalone version.”

Apple won’t roll it into the suite because the top end version of it is $25,000. They MIGHT roll in Final Touch SD which is only $995 and then allow you to upgrade to the HD version at a lower cost.

But I fully expect to remain a stand alone app like Motion and Shake with a much better round trip operation than what they have now. Shame to waste $5,000 on software I can’t even use, but what are you going to do? Colorista fits the bill right now and it’s amazing what we can do for just $199.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Jeremy Garchow]

Why is Colorista so much better than 3wayCC? Isn’t it pretty much the same, except you have some mask control?

Jeremy

[Walter Biscardi]

[JeremyG] “Why is Colorista so much better than 3wayCC? Isn’t it pretty much the same, except you have some mask control?”

Not even remotely the same. The 3 Way has a habit of affecting everything across the board too much. Lift the highlights and the mids and even the blacks come up with it. The 3 Way also adds noise to an image if you really try to bring up a dark shot to more normal levels.

Colorista is a very “smooth” grading filter that produces much better colors and allows me a much greater range of controls because it doesn’t add all the noise. I can lift the highlights without the blacks following. I can add a LOT more chroma with Colorista.

Colorista also adds an Exposure control which we use all the time inside the animatable masks. I much prefer the masks within Colorista instead of having to add a garbage matte from FCP. These are much easier to control.

The 3 Way is still really good, but Colorista is just better in terms of overall grading. I’m achieving looks that are very comparable to my Final Touch grading.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Jeremy Garchow]

Awesome, thanks! Now, you use Automatic duck, right? If you CC in FCP and autoduck the timeline to AFter Effects, does the work you’ve done in Colorista transfer over? I guess I can go hunt down the AutoDuck and other forums for the answer to that question. If so, then I am a believer.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Garchow]

Darn, looks like that process is currently busted. Wes Plate said he’s looking into it to see if they can support it for a future release.

Jeremy

[Walter Biscardi]

[JeremyG] “Darn, looks like that process is currently busted. Wes Plate said he’s looking into it to see if they can support it for a future release.”

Once again, apple screws all third party folks.

As for your earlier question, why would you CC a timeline first and then send it to AE? Color Grading is the very last thing I do before mastering to tape.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Jeremy Garchow]

If you have any suggestions on this workflow that I have been trying to nail for the past couple of years, I am all ears.

A good portion of my videos that I edit are edited in FCP for content, then autoducked to AE for a total design makeover by either a very talented AE designer, or me. When it’s me, I can cc in AE no problem. Unfortunately, the AE guy is not much of a colorist, which is fine because his design is outstanding which leaves me to correct either after he renders (which will be one long QT movie) or I give him a cc’d timeline and he designs and renders away with footage that’s already cc’d. So, what I am looking for is a way to give the AE artist cc’d footage in an autoducked timeline so he won’t have to worry about the color and levels, and I won’t have to cc one long qt movie. Even when I get the render back I still do a final sound mix and overall legal levels check before mastering, or I go through and tweak the AE guy’s project and render out on my machine.

Does that make sense or did I not explain that well? With something like Colorista, the cc’d footage will transfer into AE from autoduck with the proper CC and be rendered out with the AE design.

Alternatives:

1) Color Finesse, I just don’t feel good about spending for the version that I need. I know there’s going to something better on the horizon soon, although it does a nice job.
2) CC in AE, this works sometimes, but is a workflow pain if I hand over the project to said AE artist.
3) Have some sort of XML output from AE to bring the AE timeline back into FCP for final render and CC. A total pipe dream and not even possible, but a guy can pipe dream, can’t he?
4) Premiere Pro for the mac. I’ll have my eye on this and see how it at all pans out
5) Heed the ever solid advice of ‘wait for NAB’ to see what shakes out.
6) Quit go home early, and kill aliens in Gears of War on the Xbox 360.

Jeremy

[Walter Biscardi]

I have no suggestions on that workflow. I would probably just use Colorista in AE. If your designer is that good, surely he/she would understand the use of color and grading in overall design so they should be able to “design” a shot as well. All the artists I’ve worked with have been good about that. Would probably behoove you to spend a few hours with the artist and show them the basics of Colorista and then let them go from there. If you’re doing a total re-design in AE, I don’t see how the coloring from FCP would matter anyway because you’re apt to have illegal colors in elements introduced via the design. That’s why I always CC after After Effects and not before.

[JeremyG] “6) Quit go home early, and kill aliens in Gears of War on the Xbox 360.”

I have that too, but after picking up a Wii last week, I’m totally addicted to that now. Actually hurt my shoulder pitching too hard in baseball! 🙂

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters