Nov
Red Giant, a well-known manufacturer of plug-ins, effects and post-production applications, has partnered with CrumplePop to release two new plug-ins for FCP X: Red Giant RetroGrade and Red Giant Carousel.
These two companies have come together to address the challenges of designing tools for FCP X, with a different workflow and architecture than other applications such as After Effects or the previous FCP 7.
This is a video about how the RetroGrade plugin was developed by the two companies:
http://vimeo.com/51918488
One of the advantages of these two plugins is that they are very easy to use, just drag them from the Final Cut effects palette and drop them on the clip. You can quickly modify all of their parameters and create a customized look to your liking. In addition, on newer Mac systems, including iMac or Mac Mini, you can play these clips in real time, without having to wait for rendering.
Red Giant Retrograde
This plugin gives the possibility to get a look like 8mm and 16mm film, simulating color, grain and damaged material. In order to make this effect believable, its developers have used real analog footage to create these unique film textures. By laser scanning old Kodak and Fujifilm footage, they were able to capture the actual grain patterns, color profiles and exposure defects.
Thanks to all this development, when we apply the effect in FCP X, it shows a real film texture, something that cannot be recreated digitally from scratch.
RetroGrade includes 5 types of 8mm and 5 types of 16mm film emulations, with looks ranging from contrasting 1970s brown to 1950s films with greenish tones and grain.
http://vimeo.com/51924806
In this page you can see five tutorials about RetroGrade. They consist of:
Installation: Explains the installation and where to find the effect once Final Cut has been opened.
2. Using Red Giant RetroGrade: brief explanation on how to apply a look and what each of its modifiable parameters is for.
3. Frame and Edge Style: talks specifically about the settings that carry this name, and that influence the aspect ratio of the image and the edge that we want to apply to it.
4. Color Processing: regardless of the look we choose, we can modify its color, saturation, contrast and exposure to our liking.
5. Film Elements: this last one shows us the settings we have to add film artifacts, such as stains or hairs.
Red Giant Carousel
Carousel generates a look that emulates 120 film, with color cross-processing, film fading and vignetting. It creates striking images, combining optical imperfections, light leaks, vignetting and color grading.
It includes 10 different vintage looks, the key to which is their authenticity. It was developed using a “toy camera” print with 120 film, preserving the unique color profile and defects that came from the lab.
http://vimeo.com/45575735#
In this page you will find the same tutorials of RetroGrade, but in this case of Carousel.
One difference between the two is that Carousel has separate red, green and blue (RGB) settings, so it offers more possibilities when modifying the color of the image.
The last of the tutorials is called “Customizing Light Leaks”, and teaches us how to apply and modify light leaks.
Red Giant RetroGrade and Carousel are now available for $49 (each). You can purchase them from their website or download the trial from here.
Red Giant also has other products for Final Cut Pro X, such as Magic Bullet Looks, Magic Bullet Mojo, or the new audio and video synchronization tool PluralEyes 3.
