Grading “Return to Dungeness” using Magic Bullet Looks

476x238bloombannerV1

zfinderADforBLOOMV3



[xr_video id=”5faefef02cc4452a8c4f6acd0e1a5a86″ size=”lrm”]

Don’t forget your 20% discount on Magic Bullet Looks and Magic Bullet Quick Looks using code bloom20 at www.redgiantsoftware.com

Made for RGTV. Here is a look at the kind of things I did using Red Giant Software’s Magic Bullet Looks. I hope it is informative, it runs at 27 minutes. It barely scratches the surface of Magic Bullet Looks. But I will be going into much more detail in later videos.

This will hopefully give you a better understanding of the software. You can see the finished short film “Return to Dungeness” here:http://philipbloom.co.uk/films/35mm-films/return-to-dungeness/

Software used to capture final cut pro is the quite superb “screenflow”

It is worth signing up to Exposure Room so you can download the h264 quicktime version for a clearer picture.

35 comments

  2. Great Tutorial and thanks for the Coupon Code! Until know I was mostly using Color (Final Cut) and Adjustment Layers in AE. After seeing your results I just had to get Magic Bullet Looks wich I can integrate in both application.

    Cheers

  3. Great tutorial. Please do more MBL!!
    I’ve had MBL for a year, but I am always just blundering about with it- no real idea what I’m doing except for basic CC, which I can do in the editor anyway. I would love to be able to tap into the real potential of MBL.
    There seems to be a shortage of instructional materials for this software, so your efforts are very valuable IMO.

  4. Really informative and inspirational. I never knew MBL was actually o functional.

    Is there a way can dwnload the movie on its own? Or its nt available for download as yet?

  5. Philip,

    Thanks for this fantastic tutorial! (And thanks for 20% off my purchase of MBL.) I would echo the comments others have made about the serious lack of information available about how to use MBL. Wassup with Red Giant in that regard?

    Anywho, you hint at future MBL tutorials–I say Amen to that, brother! I suspect you only sleep an hour each night, but perhaps you could trim it to 30 minutes and use the other 30 to crank out another lesson. Your fans await!

    Thanks again and best wishes to you. Your work makes the world a better place.

    CM
    Brooklyn, NY

      1. Great tutorial Philip. You mentioned “Many more…to come”, and I was hoping you meant at least a few more on grading. 🙂 Do you have any more that I’m not seeing? I really enjoy your site, articles, tutorials!

        Peter
        Toronto

  6. Great tutorial Philip – looking forward to more! You say at the start that you don’t need a super powerful bit of kit to edit and colour video … what exactly is the spec of the laptop you used in this tutorial??!!

  7. Great tutorial… Thanks. I’ve ordered a 5dMkII now and MB Looks also.

    Quick grading question though… Can I use something like a Matrox Mini or BMD Intensity to output to HDMI to get a more accurate colour view for grading?

    Do you do all your grading on the MBP screen or use an external monitor?

  8. Hi Philip, Hope you are well. Nice work with Return to Dungeness, I particularly like the way you have used Magic Bullet looks with your footage.

    I am thinking of buying MBL as a plugin for adobe premiere CS3 but currently I only own a panasonic 3 CCD 1/6 chip Standard definition camcorder – I therefore have a quick question; how well will magic bullet looks work with standard definition footage?

    Thanks for any advice you can provide. Take care.

    Setters

  12. Well, that got me overly excited and I went off to download a trial of Magic Bullets Looks… and it doesn’t work. Nothing but errors. Period. Looking online at how to fix errors did not come up with a solution — just a lot of disappointed people, scratching their heads.

    So, oh well. Glad I didn’t buy it before trying it.

  14. nice tutorial Philip,

    Which version of Magic Bullet did you use?

    There are quite a few versions on their website from a variety of prices.

    Magic bullet looks 1.2
    Magic bullet quick looks 1.2
    Magic bullet suite 2009

    etc.

    I’d love to be able to use the tools you talked about at the cheapest price possible.

  18. The problem with Magic Bullet is it will take 10 years (not kidding? 🙂 ) when exporting your clip into h264. Even when your timeline is rendered. Footage graded with FCP Color will export in half the time. Its a bit more difficult to work but probably better way to go. This is on a quad core.

    1. That’s because I am certain you are exporting via quicktime conversion rather than quicktime. Quicktime conversion re-renders EVERYTHING! Export as a quicktime ref file VERY quickly then do what you want with it!

  19. Phil exporting to a reference file without self contained quicktime still takes about 14 minutes for a 1 minute 20 sec clip. When I get it into compressor using Virtual Clusters its 4 min 30 seconds. Is something wrong?

  20. What is the workflow when using magic bullet along with the FCP filters.

    For example, do you apply the “look” first and then use the FCP CC filters or apply the FCP filters then add the “look”?

Leave a Reply