Red Giant's Magic Bullet Mojo

Kenstone's FCP by Steve Douglas

In recent years, Red Giant has produced some wonderful color grading applications. I have long been a fan of Red Giant's Magic Bullet Looks and have used their Colorista plug-in whenever the project called for it. Not to replace either of these plug-ins, but to provide both an alternative and supplement, Red Giant's new offering, Magic Bullet Mojo, provides a quicker alternative to achieve the look you are seeking. Professional colorists, while often also working within deadlines, never the less usually have more time, skill and opportunity to spend on their productions. Too often the individual or freelance editor does not have the allowance of time or money to hire a professional colorist and is expected to be able to present to their client a finished product frequently inclusive of a particular 'look' that the client wants to see. Color correcting with Final Cut Pro's 3 way color correction and scopes is one thing, achieving certain cinema graphic looks is another. While Magic Bullet Looks provides an excellent starting off point for many of these looks, tweaking the appearance and just settling upon the great many choices within MBL can be as time consuming as when working in After Effects.

What many T.V. and movie viewers do not realize is just how much work and effort go into the color-grading end of postproduction. People who are not in this field, more than likely believe that what they are seeing is simply the way it was shot. Only when they get their first camcorders and NLEs themselves do they then realize that achieving many of the looks they see in the movies is actually done as a part of the color grading/correction process.

The Mojo interface presents 10 sliders that adjust your footage to quickly and easily manipulate the appearance and arrive at the 'look' your project needs. Actually, the limited number of 10 option sliders makes Mojo both easier to use and helps prevent you from 'overdoing things' as some can be prone to do. read more...