is mojo for skin?

Iv been reading up on the new Mojo on red giant and on on stu's blog, by what i can tell mojo is more for skin tone then the whole color of a film.

Is that right?????

just so i can understand it and sorry if im about to ask something dumb.

i would use coloristr to give a film the look im after and then add mojo to the skin tones???

sorry if this was a dumb thing to ask but i didnt gett it 100%

thanks

Mojo is a simple interface to give the film the orange/teal look of the Hollywood Blockbusters.

That is an over-simplification of what it does, as you can use the sliders to make heavy orange/teal, or lighter, but at it's basic core, that is what it does.

http://prolost.com/blog/2009/9/9/magic-bullet-mojo.html

As for Colorista, Colorista is more of a color CORRECTION tool than Mojo. You kinda have it backwards. You'd use Colorista to CORRECT the clips to uniformity, and then apply Mojo for the "look".

That said, someone familiar with Colorista could easily use it to do the Mojo look w/o the help of Mojo.

Somewhere - I cant find it - Stu likened MBLooks to a "power drill" and Mojo to "a pocket screwdriver". A simple tool for a simple task. Colorista would also fall under the "power drill" category.

Why no try the demo?

BTW there is a preset just for skin tones but mostly it's coloring the whole frame while retaining skin tones.

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I own Apple's Color. Is there any advantage to purchasing Magic Bullet, Colorista or Mojo if I already have Color?

Thanks,

Trey

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The most efficient tool to achieve your goals, is the tool that gives you a set of operations that you are most proficient at, or most comfortable with.

You have listed different tools that can help you achieve an end product. Each tool has its own primary focus, if you will - a frame of reference from which it operates. The tools could each help you get from your starting point, to the place that you desire, through a complicated set of operations. I would add to your list of "software that could help with color correction and timing", After Effects itself, your Editing Program, and Photoshop.

Each one of the tools is fundamentally capable of achieving MOST of the same results as each other tool. The difference in price, learning curve, flexibility, repeatibility, and workflow integration, are as widely varying as the set of operations that you must master to finish your job.

As with any complicated equipment or software, if you're not sure you need it, then you've got a lot more learning to do before you should make your decision.

And don't overlook the possibility of making a friend, or hiring someone that you can work with, who has the appropriate knowledge and skills.

Last edited by ClintTorres on Fri Oct 02, 2009 1:34 pm; edited 1 time in total

trey,

I use Apple Color and Magic Bullet Colorista/Looks. I like having all the tools to fit the project I'm working on and the mood I'm in. I've become a huge fan of Color and you can do some fantastic things with it, but many times I just want to stay in FCP (don't read that Stu) or stay in AE. In my opinion, I wouldn't want to have FCP or AE without colorista. It really is so much nicer to use than the 3-way in FCP and is a powerful tool in and of itself. It is really up to you if you're willing to spend money to have more options. If you become comfortable with Color, you can easily do everything you need to do in there. If you want to do many of the effects and looks you'd find in MB Looks, you need to learn the tools of the fx room in Color. It is a steeper learning curve but the tools are there.

Put another way, I like knowing Colorista & Looks are always there when I need them. Especially if your film has vfx or much AE work or finishing in AE, it's great to just stay in there and do all of your CC. I have my most fun and feel most powerful CC'ing using Color, but it is a bigger and more heady process.

Brannon

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Thanks for the feedback, guys! I've grown quite familiar with Color over the past year. Now I'm not sure, but if I'm hearing correctly, I can do just as much with Color as Magic Bullet or Colorista. The difference being that Color can be more involved? Is this accurate? I just want to make sure that I'm not missing out on anything that you guys are on to in regards to CC/grading.

p.s. I also do quite a bit of correcting in FCP with the 3 way tool. I'll usually pop into Color for secondary work if need be Smile

Trey

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	treyvollmer wrote:
	The difference being that Color can be more involved? Is this accurate?

I feel the same with Color Finesse, but hey gotta have some black sheep!

As for mojo, considering the above - it's great (25% discount easliy obtained from RG themselves).

I wouldn't say you're missing out on what you can do Trey, but sometimes it's better to get a taxi rather than a bus...

here's a link to one of Stu's posts about the pros and cons of Color vs. other tools. I think it's actually one of his best prolost posts ever, a lot of truth in here: http://prolost.com/blog/2007/4/21/color-my-impression.html

but yes, you should be able to do anything in Color that you can do elsewhere, but like Stu says, sometimes you want to have access to your other editing/onlining tools while color correcting, sometimes you may not. If you do find yourself doing a lot of color correcting directly in FCP, then Colorista is pretty sweet. Believe me, it is better than the 3-way in FCP, though you CAN get by with that. regarding using Color vs. Looks, you probably can do anything Looks can do in Color, it will just take a bit more work and understanding. Again, Looks isn't essential, but man can it be great to turn to.

I recently just picked up Mojo myself. Not essential, but I bet it will pay for itself when I just want something that looks good quick for a quick turn-around.

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Okay, now I'm getting it...

Sort of like lighting your film. There is no "best" light, but the more variety you have the better Smile

TV

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For sure! It also comes down to what you want to spend your hard earned dollars on. Some people buy too many dvds, some buy tons of camera lenses, I buy too many FCP/AE plugins and iphone apps! Razz

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Absolutely!

This stuff is expensive...

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Color vs. Colorista:

I find Colorista much simpler to use, and the modifications to the image seem a little subtler, which is a Good Thing.
Colorista, being an AE plugin, means that I can use it in the one program, AE, with which I want to complete the whole project.
It is a nuisance to be adjusting the Colorista trackballs one at a time, but considering the $$ for Colorista, this is a trivial compromise. If you want to have three simultaneous trackballs, that can cost over a $1K -- closer to $2K. There are some arcane technical reasons why this can't be easily done with cheap, readily available trackball cotrollers (this has been discussed elsewhere here, and the Red Giant wizards I spoke to concur). Such is life.

On the other hand, I haven't spent a lot of time with Color. Perhaps becoming fluent with that program would reveal capabilities which I'm not accessing. However, it seems like another learning curve I don't need. I have plenty of learning curves in digital filmmaking already.

-- Paul