Some Really Cool Free FCP7 Plug-Ins (NOT X!)

August 25, 2011

courtesy of Steven Trauger

Featured below are a collection of free plugins for Apple’s Final Cut Pro nonlinear editing software that are bound to improve/enhance your production workflow & quality.  I doubt these will work on FCPX but since so many users are still on previous versions, I thought I’d share this list I compiled for friends a while back.  Please feel free to post updates if you know of others you would like to recommend.  These are just some of the more useful ones I have found and like.  If you encounter problems, let me know what version you’re running because as things advance, I may need to take them off the list etc.  Most should install into the plugins folder located on the HD>library>application support>final cut pro system support folder or the like (and as I stated above, probably won’t work in the new 64 bit version).

• http://bit.ly/ekhBXe – Region Blur (if you’ve ever worked in news you’ll like this one; gives you the ability to actually blur out faces etc. when you don’t have the time to stack and matte video layers to achieve the same effect)
• TKYGradientFilterEffect.zip and TKYGradientFilterOSC.zip – ND Gradient Filter (great for adding a rich sky look to your work)
• http://bit.ly/dVJy36 – Chalk Fx (lets you draw on the screen in FCP)
• http://bit.ly/etI4U5 – Elastic Aspect (stretches the pixel data in your 4:3 content to fill a 16:9 space so video on your widescreen isn’t stretched or shown with bars etc. …pretty nifty)
• http://bit.ly/dKnX7I – Guides (great tool with an array of support for modern guide layouts ranging from items like HD with CC protection to EBU/BBC compliance overrides)
• http://bit.ly/4Odjqo Closing Credits (gives you control over individual fonts and speed)
• http://bit.ly/fUaKX2 Improved Text Crawl (with added options of a background, shadow, no character limit, etc)
• http://bit.ly/gXRUfS Simple Crop (allows a DVE style effect like you’d find on a switcher by making it easy to crop and add a colored border around video in FCP)
• http://www.digiretus.com/tippek/cikkiro.php?SORSZAM=74 – Shadow Highlight (provides functionality similar to the Highlight/Shadow function in Photoshop, revealing detail in under or overexposed footage by lifting shadows or reducing highlights)
• http://bit.ly/fZBeGi Jitterbug (watch your text come alive and jump or jitter on the screen for a cool effect)
• http://bit.ly/gkknfJ Day for Night (with infra-red version, too – similar to the famous Eureka! plugin set that no one can seem to find…hopefully you’re like me and grabbed it a few yrs ago because most of them still work)
• http://bit.ly/1a22Wv Photo2 (cool effect that lets you place your video/still image into a Polaroid-style photograph on screen…flies in & even lets you label it if you install the matching font to make it look like you wrote the caption with a marker)
• http://bit.ly/eNsiqh Aged Film (great little free effect for adding film scratches etc.)
• http://bit.ly/TP8Wb Too Much Too Soon (fantastic collection; be sure to check this link out)
• http://bit.ly/bgwTzZ Noise Industries Freebies (collection installs into FX Factory & requires that free software first: http://www.noiseindustries.com/fxfactory/ …some really good ones here, too–esp. if you like to have greater style controls over text in FCP)

I’ve also made some customized droplets for Compressor that you may find handy, available on my site’s page here: http://stvp.net/v7/?page_id=225

Some Really Cool Free FCP Plug-Ins