The biggest plug-in news in recent weeks has got to be the announcement that RED Digital Cinema has been working with Adobe to create an importer plug-in that brings native support for .R3D files to Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Adobe After Effects CS4 and Adobe Encore CS4. Start thinking about Premiere for finishing, because with this plug-in, you will be able to drop 4K native .R3D files right onto the timeline without transcoding or rewrapping. At this writing, the plug-in was still in beta, though those of us at IBC got a sneak peak, and a few have already dabbled with it stateside. Film & Video‘s editor-in-chief, Bryant Frazer, has an interview with some of those lucky few, the Olson brothers of DV3 Productions, who used a version of the plug-in for Premiere Pro CS3 to finish their 25-minute short, Fatal Flaw, in 2K.

Speaking of file swapping across applications, Studio Daily has a great video of Automatic Duck founder Wes Plate explaining at a recent AlphaDogs Editors’ Lounge how to use his company’s plug-ins to easily and quickly move your projects between Avid, Final Cut Pro and After Effects while preserving your timeline, metadata and effects. Check out what he says about the new timeline and effect translation tool coming in version 4.0 of Pro Export FCP.

And stay tuned for the November issue of Studio/monthly, which will include a tutorial on Motype, the latest release from Noise Industries that animates text in Final Cut Pro, Motion, Final Cut Express and After Effects, as well as step-by-step tutorial of the emerging RED/Adobe workflow.

-Beth Marchant, Editor-in-Chief