MotionVFX mKBHD for macOS

The mKBHD plugin is a box of ready-made presets that mimics the clean, kinetic look of Marques Brownlee's video style.

Tracks — these are your title overlays. The Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro versions each pack 45 of them, while the DaVinci Resolve version carries 35. Think lower-thirds, full-screen text cards, and callout boxes that snap onto the screen with the same crisp energy you see in his reviews.

Buses — the effects and transitions that glue your cuts together. You get 6 transitions in every host (Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve), plus 10 effects in the Resolve package. Drop a transition between two clips when you need a swish pan or a speed-ramp style movement without keyframing it yourself.

Typical jobs — these presets earn their keep on tech reviews, product showcases, and social cuts. Both the Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve versions support horizontal or vertical aspect ratios, so the same preset works whether you're finishing a YouTube deep-dive or a quick Reel. The Premiere Pro version sticks to horizontal.

Why presets still need a second pass

Dropping a preset onto a clip and walking away is the biggest one. These effects are tuned to work fast, but they still need a second pass. The title animations, for example, often land at a default duration of two seconds — fine for a quick callout, awkward when your text stays on screen for eight. Stretch the clip in your timeline before you judge the result.

Another trap: stacking too many presets on the same clip. I get it, the swish transitions and kinetic titles feel addictive. But when you layer a motion title over a speed-ramp transition and then throw in a lower-third, your timeline gets heavy and the viewer's eye doesn't know where to land. Pick one hero move per cut and let it breathe.

With DaVinci Resolve, editors sometimes skip the hardware check. The Resolve package wants 16 GB of system memory and 4 GB of VRAM. If you're on a machine that barely scrapes by, those 10 effects and 6 transitions will stutter during playback. Render a small section as a test before you commit to a full timeline of presets.

Finally, a small thing that trips people up: the Final Cut Pro install expects two folders — one goes into Motion Templates/Titles, the other into Motion Templates/Transitions. Mix them up and the presets simply won't show in the browser. Double-check which folder gets the titles and which gets the transitions.

Cutting a tech review in four minutes

Let's say I'm cutting a quick tech review. I've got four minutes of footage: a product on a desk, some close-up shots, and a clip of me talking to camera. The timeline is rough-cut and I want to give it that MKBHD snap before I export.

First, I drag a lower-third title onto the opening shot. I type in the product name, trim the title clip to about three seconds, and nudge it so it fades in just after the first beat of the background music. The text slides in with that crisp horizontal motion — no keyframes touched.

Between the intro and the close-up section, I drop one of the 6 transitions. A fast swish carries the eye from the wide desk shot into the detail clip. The timing feels right at 12 frames; anything longer and the move loses its punch. I check it twice at full speed and once in slow playback to make sure the motion doesn't overlap the dialogue.

For the middle section, I pull up a full-screen text card preset. I use it to split two product features visually — bold white text on a darkened background, held for four seconds each. Because I'm working in Final Cut Pro in a vertical timeline, I switch the preset to vertical mode and the layout adjusts without extra fiddling.

Last step: I scrub through the whole cut and pull back on anything that competes. One lower-third felt late, so I slid it ten frames earlier. The transition before the outro got shortened to eight frames. The whole session — from rough cut to polish — took under twenty minutes, and the timeline still looks clean because I didn't bury it in overlapping presets.

The latest version bundles 51 ready-made presets into a single package, covering titles, effects, and transitions across all three host apps.

• macOS Big Sur 11.7.10 or newer
• Apple Silicon or Intel Mac
• Final Cut Pro 10.6.5, DaVinci Resolve 17.4, or Adobe Premiere Pro 2022+
• 16 GB system memory
• 4 GB VRAM (DaVinci Resolve)