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   Software Review
   Magic Bullet Suite 2
 
   Publisher: Red Giant Software
   Genre: Film simulation and color grading
   Platform: Windows & Mac

   MSRP: $795

   Website: Red Giant Software
   Download Demo: Click Here

   Example Footage: Sample #1, Sample #2

   Release Dates: February 1, 2005


   Review Date:
March 15, 2006
   Reviewed By: Jeremy Hanke
Final Score:
8.1

In November, we reviewed Magic Bullet Editors 2, the little brother to the ten-ton gorilla which is Magic Bullet Suite. Now we take a look at the follow-up to the full package that is so powerful that Cameron Crowe chose to use it to create Vanilla Sky.

For those of you who are unaware of what Magic Bullet Suite is, it is a software package that's designed to be a one-stop conversion kit for DV and HD footage to more closely replicate film. Created as a plug-in to After Effects, it allows color tinting, film-like destructive processes, and, most importantly, deinterlacing and true conversion to 24 fps.

With that said, let's break down the program.

Ease of Use
Installation of the program is pretty straightforward, with an installer that will automatically install itself into your After Effects folder. Once installed, you open After Effects, import an interlaced clip, and get to work.

While the basic installation is simple, getting the hang of the different things you need to set up in After Effects is a bit of a pain, as you must set up two different menus, one for interpreting your footage and the other for your composition attributes, before you can even the Magic Bullet plug-in. While the program does have a quick-start guide, it's buried 30 pages into the manual and is right next to PAL information, which means that it's a bit easy to mis-read things. Unfortunately, if you don't set everything up perfectly, the Suite doesn't generate helpful errors telling you what you did wrong…it just won't work. Once I figured out that I had been clicking one wrong thing in the footage interpretation menu, everything worked fine. I think it would be helpful if the program popped up a helpful message showing you that you had chosen an improper setting in a particular menu, rather than just not working. (There is an error message section of the plug-in, but it is only related to the footage itself and was not very helpful at all.)

Once you get everything installed, MBS2 returns to being a breeze. You simply drag your footage into your pre-set composition and lay on the Magic Bullet filters. When you do this, it shows an auto setup button with a clever trigger decal. Click on this and it will interpret your footage, decide how it best needs to de-interlace it and convert it to 24fps. (Unless you haven't filled out one of the earlier menus correctly, at which time the Auto Setup button won't click.)

After that, it's pretty easy to lay on any other MBS filters you want, like the LookSuite filters or the MisFire film damage filters.

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