These 5 Final Cut pro plug ins can help raise your video’s production value a ton.
Hey guys my name is Dylan, and this channel is all about filmmaking and final cut pro,
and let’s jump right into why you clicked on this video.
No beating around the bush.
Plug in #1 is a plug in that I’ve created quite a few color grading walking throughs
with and some dedicated tutorials as well.
It’s called Color Finale 2 Pro.
This plug in essentially puts Davinci Resolve color grading abilities into Final Cut.
Not to a tee of course, but it’s a huge improvement from the built in color grading tools in Final
Cut color grading features.
Let me give you a crash explanation on why I love this plug in.
It has some basic sliders for easy color grading and the ability to use false color, yes, but
the real money is in this layers panel.
In Color Finale 2 Pro you can label your corrections, which is something that we’ve been asking
for from Apple for a long time, you can group them as well, there’s trackable color correction
masks, and the big seller for me personally is the ability to blur HSL color masks.
Let me show you why this is useful.
With the built in final cut pro color grading tools, if you try and push your colors around
too much when using a color mask, you’ll end up creating artifacts.
Color Finale 2 Pro has the same thing that Resolve has which is a blur option for HSL
masks.
This can help you to achieve a smooth color rolloff which will help your color grade
look way cleaner.
Also, this tab may interest some of you.
It’s called six vectors.
It gives you quick access to adjust the color, saturation, and brightness of 6 different
colors.
This is something you can do with the built in color grading tools in Final Cut but with
this plug in it’s quicker and easier to adjust.
The nice thing is if your skin tones are a bit off in color, you can quickly just adjust
the red hue slider till your talent’s skin lines up with the skin tone line.
Also, you can create LUTs with this plug in, so that’s pretty neat.
So who should pick this plug in up?
If you’re interested in color grading or want to become more proficient at it, I’d give it
a shot.
I’ll put a link to a free trial below if you’d like to try it out first.
Plug in #2 is from the lovely people over at MotionVFX and quick disclaimer, I do create
videos for them, so I really tried to limit how many plug ins of theirs I put in this
video, especially because I truly love all of the plug ins they make, BUT maybe what I’ll
do is create a separate video on the best MotionVFX plug ins if that’s something that
interests you.
So comment below and I’ll get a gauge of how you guys feel about that.
So the next plug in, plug in number 2 is called mFilmMatte and this is an all around really cool plug in.
It basically gives you options for different cinematic film frames which seems to be very
in right now.
I sound kind of old saying that, but its true.
It gives you preset options as well as customizable mattes and the nice thing is you don’t have
to add your video into a drop zone if you don’t want.
You could just switch this to empty frame or background footage.
It also gives you options for lots of different film overlay effects like this cool blur effect,
you can add a film burn effect, some grain, a drag and drop letterbox, light leaks, a
sprocket hole, vignetting.
This plug in gives you lots of options to get that nostalgic rich feel in your shots
and it also comes with 5 titles which is pretty cool as well as 5 transitions and even some drag and drop
titles which simulate a little camera movement.
This plug in isn’t going to be for everyone I don’t think, but if you’re into that
filmic, nostalgic look then give this plug in a shot.
Plug in #3 is another one from the king of plug ins, MotionVFX and this one is mTitle
Kinetic 2.
This is a title pack that comes with 60 animated titles that were designed to look like the titles
you that may see in Apple videos, but to be honest, even if you’re creating an edit
that’s not an Apple style edit, maybe you’re a YouTuber or you do lots of client work,
these will be killer to use.
They’re fully customizable, some give you easy options to add a color gradient on them,
and the animations range from extreme to minimal.
For me personally as a creator, I love title that are simple and have solid animations
and so this pack, this title pack, ticks all the notches for me.
Is that a phrase?
I think that’s a phrase.
If you’re looking to pick up some titles for Final Cut, give these a look.
They’re awesome.
Plug in #4 is called Beauty Box and let me just show you what this does before I explain.
With Beauty Box.
Without Beauty Box.
With Beauty Box.
Without Beauty box.
With Beauty Box.
Without Beauty Box.
This is an intelligent skin smoothing plug in and it’s definitely not cheap, I’m
letting you know now, but if you do a lot of client work, this can pay itself back ten
fold.
I’ve had one or two clients specifically mention that I made them look fantastic and
it seemed to be one of the factors in them becoming a recurring client.
Even if you don’t do client work and you just create content yourself, you may find
this plug in handy.
It’ll get rid of blemishes, dark bags under eyes, and it just smooths skin overall.
It’s basically a makeup artist for you in post.
I don’t use it on myself in my YouTube videos as you can see but I could imagine for some of you that have YouTube channels,
this may be of some interest to you.
It’s also really easy to use by the way.
Last but not least we have mFilmLook by MotionVFX and if you like to create cinematic style
videos, then this one is going to hit home for you.
If you really don’t have time to customize the look of your shot, you can use some of
the mFilmLook presets that come with the plug in, but I would recommend customizing your
shot yourself.
If you shot in a log profile you can add a conversion LUT quick and easy here to convert
your footage to a rec 709 color space, you can quickly make adjustment to your levels,
you can add some vibrance in your shot which’ll raise the saturation of the least saturated
areas and keep your subjects skin tones at a decent level.
You have tons of options for offscreen flares, you can add LUTs and MotionVFX also has
a boat load of options for LUTs that you can buy.
You can add some chromatic aberration which I’ve really been digging recently.
You can create a shallow depth of field in post with this lens blur feature.
You can add film grain from right in the plug in as well as some vignetting, and some easy options
for a letterbox.
It’s basically a one stop shop in creating cinematic looking footage.
And if you have settings that you consistently like to use, then you can save your own presets
by clicking on this button here.
There you have it, 5 plug ins for 2022.
And I actually have quite a bit more plug ins that I like to use so if you enjoyed this
type of video please let me know that you did in the comments and I’ll start making
more of these.
As always, thank you guys so so much for your support.
It truly means the world to me.
And I hope you guys have a fantastic rest of your day.