If you haven’t watched our newest getting started tutorials (like the ones for Grinder, Photolooks, and many of our FCP intro tutorials) you may not be familiar with our British team member, Simon Walker,  but he’s kind of a Renaissance man. Aside from working on animation and visual effects, he’s a talented musician, photographer, father, and vigilante crime fighter (though he denies that last one vehemently).

Simon just uploaded  these 5 free Looks for Magic Bullet Looks and Photolooks, which you can find at Red Giant People, our community site for sharing presets and templates. Here are 2 images of those presets in use.

You ever look everywhere for your glasses when they’re just sitting on your head (or maybe they’re actually in place, on your face, where they should be)? Well that’s th kind of day I was having yesterday. I’ve been trying to create an old film look with no stock footage, but was finding it a bit of a challenge. But then I remembered something Stu Maschwitz said at our company meeting – “Misfire” – a term I was confused about, but which I promptly filed away under “I’ll worry about that later.”

I wish I hadn’t. It turns out I had the tools for old film looks all along. It’s not mentioned anywhere on the Red Giant site, but Magic Bullet Looks comes with a great set of tools called Magic Bullet MisFire. These tools allow you to add old film effects like dust and scratches, flicker, film noise… etc., to create an old film look.

And to save me a lot of time and trouble, I added Nick Campbell’s  Vintage film for Looks for a nice vintage coloration.You don’t need it, or course. Magic Bullet Looks gives you complete control of your looks, but this is something Nick is really good at, and there’s no reason not to at least start with his vintage look settings.

Of course, no old-school footage is complete without light leaks. I used Trapcode Particular to create those, and when all was said and done it looked pretty good.

If you want to do this, I made a tutorial that walks you through this process, and you can find that here.

New Episode Folks!

Episode 28: Building an Airport Scene – Part 2: Compositing
By: Mathias Möhl

In this episode of Red Giant TV, Mathias Möhl continues his airport project, and shows you how to motion track with Mocha For After Effects, and then to use that data along with MochaImport (His own Script) to easily create a solid composite.

Watch the episode here.

And get a discount on Magic Bullet Looks and Red Giant Warp here.

Folks – get ready for a truly awesome episode with a truly awesome guest…

Episode 22: Creating a summer blockbuster film look

Hosted by Stu Maschwitz

In this week’s action packed episode of Red Giant TV, Sin City’s Visual Effects Supervisor – and our new Creative Director – Stu Maschwitz, shows you how to get the Summer Blockbuster look seen in Transformers 2, Terminator: Salvation, and The Taking of Pelham 123. Stu shares valuable techniques for enhancing your footage with Magic Bullet Looks and Colorista – the technologies he invented for his own use on feature films.

Watch it here.

There’s also a sale associated with the episode. Here’s the info on that:

Save 25% on Magic Bullet Colorista and Magic Bullet Looks until June 26, 2009

Get that Summer Blockbuster Film Look. Save 25% on any new order of Magic Bullet Colorista and Magic Bullet Look, from now through June 26, 2009. Enter Coupon Code NL0609 to redeem your discount.

Our checkout includes two initial pages. To redeem your discount, enter Coupon Code NL0609 on the second page, titled Review and Submit Your Order, in the coupon code field. (Note: The coupon code field appears after you have entered your credit card information and hit Continue. The Gift Certificate field on the first check out page cannot accept the Coupon Code.)

That’s right. Part 2 is finally here!

Click the image to watch the sample video.

Watch the tutorial here.

And in it, we’re using Trapcode Shine and Magic Bullet Looks. You can always download trial versions to work along with me, but we’re also giving you a 30% discount on both products if you want to buy one or both.