Post-Production : Plugins by Cory Davidson

Transition Pack 2

OK, I have heard Red Giant is good, but have never used it, or any plugins for that matter

Red Giant is good. Try it.

I will be using them on an upcoming music video next weekend, and will get to find out!

look at the RED GIANT, VIDEO CO-PILOT and THE FOUNDRY software plugins.. There are quite a few of great plugins there that we use extensively on projects.

It really depends on what effect you are looking for. AE can create many of the effects you are thinking about buying. When you buy an effect from say Red Giant, it will be a drag and drop effect due to multiple effects have been stacked already and tied together with Expressions. If you have CS6 you have AE I am assuming.... Video Co-Pilot has some real slick one too.

Thank you simon! That's really good advice! I do have CS6 and I'm in the midst of exploring what it can do. Hopefully I will have something to share with everyone very soon. I am trying to get use to the program, and develop my take on it, so this upcoming fall I can really dig in with my first actual project. Also, as far as cameras go I am debating on a mark II because I do not have $4k for a mark III as of yet. But also the black magic cinema looked very interesting. I am currently using a t3i with magic lantern. Works beautifully for what I need it for currently.

Head over to ClassonDemand.com and buy a year subscription to the classes. Best deal out there. See when you get to 301 Final Project. About 800 lessons and a solid year of 5 - 7 hours a day! Then you should be ready to 'dig in' and start editing. Just about anything you can think of. Then when you realize AE is 2.5D unless you Pop for Cinema 4D for another 2 grand! Head over to Blender (free) and learn their program. Really cool. you can create anything in Blender and top it off with AE. See my Photos for an idea of Blender. I just started with Blender this year. Cameras- Buy a camera that imports the info onto preferably 3 sensors, at a min of 4:2:2 A changeable lens would be nice too. 18-22mm a 35 and a 50mm. You will be set! Many cameras have a 24mm to 40mm non digital zoom which means it does not break up or get noisy. Digital Zoom is electronically doubled / Tripled to get you the 'effect' of 200mm. Like a camera that shoots in HD on CMOS at 4:2:0. Fake marketing. Get a camera that can bring in two mics and syncs them, in my opinion. OR Get a handheld MP3 / Wav recorder at 20-20K with 3 mics in for a nice miz out. As 5.1 is done in editing.

To comment on the tutorials that Simon mentioned - spot on. I have been a member of Lynda.com and wow, I honestly could not have done most of the work we are doing in post without these fantastic tutorials. There are lots of free tutorials on YouTube as well - kind of hit or miss, but free is good. Also - the Video CoPilot site is pretty incredible for their free tutorials as well. Andrew is fantastic in his presentations of what he is doing, mostly in After Effects. Many of them WAY above my head, but he goes through them at a pace I can pretty easily follow and the effects are impressive. While he does push his products, for the most part you don't absolutely need their plugins which I think is pretty cool. We do have Red Giant plugins (for us, Red Giant Warp has been fantastic) and decided that for composting work (we have LOTS), we needed to spring for Mocha Pro instead of the built-in Mocha AE that comes with AE... Really impressive tracking and much faster/more accurate than AEs tracker. Hope that helps! Matt

@ Matt Cramer is a gas... I like his how to's in the beginnings. Too funny! Like a pull away from a parking lot into outerspace. First thing you need is a balloon and some fishing line. Oh don't forget to turn the camera on first. LOL!

I agree Matt Cramer offers excellent, helpful and fun how-to tutorials... I can't recommend them enough.

Here is a music video I shot and edited. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3eIbTKJOH7w&feature=youtu.be