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Useful Tools for Editors: So Long 2021 Edition

Scott Simmons

Useful Tools for Editors: So Long 2021 Edition 1

It’s been nearly a year since I published a Useful Tools for Editors column so the coming end of 2021 seems like it’s time for another.

Before we begin though … I so love this so I thought I’d embed it first. Any comic strip that mentions sync is alright in my book.

And now on with the show.

Reading is Fundamental!

How often have you been working a job and needed to take a look at a PDF, Word .doc, and a spreadsheet all within a few minutes? Rather than launching three heavy applications for a few seconds each have about a lightweight app that just lets you read many different document formats quicky and easily?

That’s what Reading is Fundament! is all about. It’s a $5 Mac app that is also a Final Cut Pro workflow extension (Mac App store link). It’s also just a single window with an Open… button. That’s all it is.

Above is the default document that opens. Those are a whole lot of the files you might need to open and reference while editing. Depending on the file format you can pinch zoom into the text if your trackpad supports it. Multiple documents can be opened and the navigation arrows will let you step between them. I wish you could copy text out of Reading is Fundament! but that would require some engineering that is beyond the scope of this simple $5 app. It’s still useful even without that function.

It’s simple and useful. My feature request is this:

Reading is Fundamental! comes from Intelligent Assistance, and they know how to make useful tools!

Fylm.ai (color grading in the cloud)

Imagine crossing a light DaVinci Resolve with Frame.io and you have Fylm.ai. It’s billed as “Easy Hollywood colour grading on the web” and they aren’t far from the truth. It’s a very powerful color grading engine and user interface accessible with a web browser.

 

I used Fylm.ai on a recent job where I had to do the colorwork. Rather than going through some trial and error of uploading graded clips and sections for review and approval, I first sent selective stills on Fylm.ai for various parts of the program. We dialed in those looks and I then exported a LUT to apply in Premiere Pro. I think this really cut down on the time it took to get the color right.

It’s quite a cool platform. Beyond the ACES color-managed workflow, there are a ton of tools to work with. From a lot of basic grading tools you’ll recognize to things like “Magic Mode” which can help dial in the right look. There are color matching workflows, split views and video scopes. It’s pretty crazy to see this all in a browser. Cost is $16 / month for the solo user and $41 / month for a team of 3. You can try it for free as well.

The Machine Must Work’s Premiere Pro extensions

While participating in Adobe MAX this year I met the developer The Machine Must Work. He has several useful Adobe Premiere Pro extensions he distributes through AE Scripts. Little did I know that I already used one of them! While MAX wasn’t in-person this year they had these things called brain dates and Henrique set one up about Premiere Pro workflow which is always a topic that interests me. It’s great to see PPro extensions that add things to your PPro workflow.

Here’s the current list of useful tools that TMMW sells. I’ve embedded videos about each that are a bit in-depth as opposed to the quick promos as they are a better way to get an idea of what each one does. Each tool costs $20 and a free trial is available.

Clips Exporter – Batch export individual clips from your Premiere Pro sequences in a single click including applied effects.

Selector for Premiere Pro – Easily select items and clips in your Premiere Pro projects and sequences. Save selection presets. Use over 45 selection filters.

Text Replacer for Premiere Pro – Import and export text in Premiere Pro from your After Effects templates (.mogrt).  Only works with templates (.mogrt) created in After Effects.

Thumbs Up – Easily create thumbnails for social media and client websites. Directly from your Sequence (Premiere Pro), Composition (After Effects) or Document (Photoshop).

There is some good Premiere Pro stuff there. Support the small developer and think about how much time you might save over the years of using some of these tools.

TopNotch

Remember that the new M1 MacBook Pros have a little camera notch at the top of the screen? Probably not but if you do and have one and the notch bothers you this free app called TopNotch will let you turn the menubar black so you don’t see the notch. That’s it. That’s what it does.

After using it, I really like the black menubar. The irony here is that once my menu bar go to full with lots of icons and things the TopNotch menubar thingy disappeared behind the notch. 🤦‍♂️

Editingtools.io

The final thing on our Useful Tools for Editors list isn’t a single tool but a website that is a collection of useful tools. EditingTools.io is a big batch of useful things like generators, converters, tools and more. It’s quite a cool website that offers the potential for post-production folks to save some time depending on what you want to do. Need a letterbox matte? Generate one here.

How about a watermark overlay? That too.

And it’s not just generators.

There are music cue sheets, ALE editor codebooks, QC note tools, subtitling tools, marker conversion tools and more. There’s even an AI category where you can upload clips and do things like face detection and colorize a black and white image. It’s well worth your time to browse around and see what all is there.

For some real fun spend some time going over the AI Auto-Editing page. Depending on your language you might have to send it through translation but it’s quite interesting. And cool. And scary.

Making MOGRTs eBook

Would you like a free eBook about making Motion Graphics templates in After Effects for Premiere Pro? Of course, you would if you use the Adobe Suite. Jarle Leirpoll, who wrote the most useful book ever about Premiere Pro, has just such a book. Titled Marking MOGRTs (what else?!) you get over 100 pages of MOGRT goodness.

If you’re an editor who doesn’t touch After Effects you’ll probably learn something here that could be very helpful. Imagine advanced lower third templates that you can easily change in Premiere Pro and you can see how useful MOGRTs can be. And they don’t have to be overly complex. This eBook is a PDF so you can stuff it into your favorite PDF reader and keep it close by.

RIP Bryant

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Bryant Frazer. If you’ve been reading video industry content for a long time then you’ve read Bryant’s stuff. I worked along with him for several years at Studio Daily. Our NAB conversations were always something to look forward to. Bryant was always full of knowledge and willing to help to get an article or review out to readers. He kept Studio Daily going long after its life probably should have ended. We had just been looking for ways to fit Bryant into ProVideo Coalition this year so he will be missed.

Bryant, we’ll read you in that great publication in the sky.

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