Guidance for an out of work developer

I hope the moderators here don't mind this post.

I'm looking for suggestions on FCP/Motion/Premiere plug-ins to write.

I was laid off on Thursday, cried most of today and now I'm trying to figure out if there's some way to go indie so that I won't need to face this type of nightmare again.

I've only been playing with it in my spare time, but I think I'm pretty decent at writing plug-ins. I think I'm pretty good at software in general, but this is my second lay-off in three years and it's like they oyster shucked my heart out of my body. I'm obviously going to hit the job sites pretty hard again, but I'm wondering if anyone has ideas for a good plug-in that they're willing to share or even team up with me on. Not a lot of thoughts into this...just desperate and flailing.

Thanks in advance...

Welcome Bill to fcp.co

Too sad to hear your story …

A few thoughts, no ‘advice’:
I’m no pro, just an ‘enthusiastic hobbyist’… published ~100 plugins here @fcpco, for free, lots of silly stuff (a Scrabble generator???) but, if I would had earned a dollar per DL, my son’s college would be financed. Partially. A year. Less. LOL. :silly:

But for a living …?
My, limited, overview conc. Plugins:
There are less than a handful of profitable companies (assumption based upon, they are in business for years …), guess, pure speculation, frame.io is the biggest - which is ‘a bit’ beyond ‘just’ a plugin, offering a service, cloud capacities, etc …

… way beyond than fancy animated-box-around-text stuff, tinkerers like me offer for free or pocket-money… Motions makes it soooo easy to create your own custom plugins….

You asked for ideas … ok, one silly one, one killing an established well-known plugin maker (coremelt…)

• what’s beyond plugins-made-with-Motion and asking for superb knowledge and programmers skills of the pluginSDK is Audio-Parameters - imagine a ’Siri Animation’ Generator, driven by the actual audio of the clip underneath; or, I made for some school-project a talking, lip-sync MrPotatoeHead - as a Motion project easy, but not ‘publishable’ to FCPX.

• the killer-app: a Tracker based upon the Vision Framework (demoed here: developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/506/ )

“Boohooo, there are trackers, TrackX works here for years!” - yep, but watch the WWDC demo: it’s a ‘content-aware’ process (like in the Photos.app, where content is automatically indexed, search for dogs, or woods or tables), no ‘track these manually selected dots’, but ‘track that bike/face/cat’ …no masks, no bezier, no roto… <sigh>

Two options:
• I demand a 10% share from the millions you will earn with this concept
• the Vision Framework is from 2017 - how come, a tracker is no genuine part of FCPX??? My hopes were high with vers.10.4 and are still with a future 10.5. version … Which means, ‘our’ business is DOA within this year …

… hmm …?

What Karsten said, plus, read through these forums. Look at what plugins folks are asking for that don't readily exist.

I use MotionVFX a lot, but there are LOTS of instances I need something and they have nothing that will fit the required theme. They, like all plugin developers, have a limited scope of themes they do. Watch lots of TV commercials, what themes and functions do those of us who do dozens of these a week need? I'm always having to frankenstein stuff together from various sources to get something that works for my clients.

The plugin market for FCPX has lots of content, but as someone editing TV shows and TV commercials daily, most of it is repetitive, social media based, and useless for my real world needs. So there is plenty of empty space that could be filled.

Consider doing custom work for folks, then use what they pay you to do to put on the market, also.

Coremelt has a site that sells inexpensive plugins which I use a LOT. It needs more content, and they cut a fair deal with the designers who submit to them.
coremelt.com/collections/vfx-market

In a nutshell, in my real world broadcast experience, there is a ton of content out there, but it's all repetitive, limited in scope, and most of it looks cool but not practical for real world clients. Aim to sell to professionals, broadcasters, fill the huge empty gap that is still there.

My thanks to both of you for responding. Where would I reach people who need custom work done? I'm pretty much a nobody trying to figure out how to pay next month's rent.

I'm going to try my hand at feeding an audio waveform into a rig.

When I make my first million, where should I send the check?

Bill

BillSmithInCA wrote: … Where would I reach people who need custom work done? …

My local market quite different to US, e.g. 'designers' at broadcasters are usually salaried, no free lancers etc etc, so no smartass hints from me....

But…
anyway how you contact potential clients - you need a REEL, demoing your skills and talents. Was a white-collar-guy in the industry, some hundred years ago, so two advices you have never heard before <cough> .......
"There's no 2nd chance for a 1st impression"
plus Elevator Pitch: if you don't impress me in the first 30secs of your reel, you won't in 30minutes …

Coremelt's VFX Market would be a good place to start. They sell stuff for designers/developers there. Contact them and they may be able to list some of your stuff as a way to get started.