User Profiles

Brian Williams
Super 68

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Tell us about Super 68
Super 68 is me and its the name I use when I design or animate MoGraph exclusively. I also work as a live action Director as Brian Williams. Sometimes the lines blur!

What tools do you use?
Mac, After Effects and all the Adobe products. Cinema 4D. Final Cut. And MANY MANY other smaller programs.

How did you find out about Damage?
I keep an eye on the site.

Tell us about this project using Damage?
The project was to feel totally real and secretly filmed, then posted anonymously to a news website as an expose. It was of course fake. The meat was all real! [We minced a ton of cattle that day, rivers of blood] The staff were however actors. Therefore I needed to give the footage flaws and subtle artifacts you only get by accident during compression, disc writing accidents and uploading. Damage was perfect and offered instant solutions and loads of variations.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?
The don't behave or look like they were programmed in the 80's for a laugh.

Would you recommend Digieffects to a friend or colleague?
Yes.

Steven Mitas
WPIX TV Inc.

Tell us about WPIX TV Inc.
We are WPIX TV Inc., a Tribune Broadcasting station. We are a local broadcasting station serving the New York/metro area.

What tools do you use?
We use Knoll Light Factory, Trapcode Shine, Starglow, Particular, Digieffects Damage, Cinelook2, particles from Motion once in a while. I mostly use After Effects & Cinema 4d is my 3d software.

How did you find out about Damage?
I think because I was searching the internet, I saw Damage on a link, at the time it was exactly what I needed for a project.

Tell us about this project using Damage?
For the Subway Series, I wanted some digital texture on the video, with a little bit of interference and and flicker. I thought a good way to transtion between clips was to have the subway hit a hard rail bump and use some of Damage’s features for a digital breakup up to the next clip.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?
I like Damage because it’s pretty intuitive to use, better than creating noise in after effects, etc. and the video tutorials gave me a good jump start on the software.

Would you recommend Digieffects to a friend or colleague?
I would definitely recommend Damage, I haven’t tried the other products yet, but perhaps in the future.

Ivan Šantić
MOTH3R

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Tell us about MOTH3R
MOTH3R is my sustainable platform; multi-disciplinary design with primary focus on 3D, and motion production with direction in full respect of Film, Video, Industrial Design, Concept Design, Set - Environment Design and Graphic Design.

What tools do you use?
I am versatile, I work on both Mac and PC platform, which typically involves Adobe or Autodesk line of products. Still, if I can I would stick to Luxology Modo for everyday use, because of great and powerful modeling tools.

How did you find out about Damage?
There are not much software good and effective as Digieffects Damage so it did not take much to google out that information from numerous sites and forums.

Tell us about this latest project using Damage?
I am very interested in experimental side of the film and video where glitches are playing a big part. The option to recreate damaged transmission, just like the way they could come corrupted form the digital source got me interested from the start. All the range of possible options like output of both digital and analog signal - interference, noise, low fidelity of devices and artifacts with authentic look and feel, made me realize that search I have conducted a long time ago is finally over.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?
It is fast and versatile software filled with options so it does not take much to customize it to each project, just the way you like it.

Would you recommend Digieffects to a friend or colleague?
Certainly, it is my one my favorites, packed with tweaks and options, it is outgunning similar solutions.

Caspar Newbolt
Version Industries

Tell us about Version Industries

Here's what someone recently said about us in an interview:
http://haystack.com/listings/4015-v-version-industries

What tools do you use?

For video we use Final Cut and After Effects.

How did you find out about Damage?

Googled various keywords like 'damaged and distorted video' for a while until your website came up and I got a look at your demos.

Tell us about this project using Damage.

Well the band is an experimental sort who meld rock instrumentation with avant-garde electronic music, which often sounds distorted, broken and disjointed in some way or other. Taking this notion and their name sake (65 Days Of Static), I wanted to make the entire film feel like the footage was falling apart on them in a fashion similar to the digital decay in their music.

There's one particular part for the track called 'Fix The Sky A Little' where I used damage to tweak the image in time with the music as we're walking through a back stage area following the band in slow motion.

I found it worked very well on type as much as video, so all the credits throughout the film looked like they were fragmenting as well. It's perhaps this touch I enjoyed most of all the things I managed to do with Damage.

For the most part, though, it provided a nice way of accentuating (rather than hiding) the fact that the whole film was shot on a low quality consumer DV camera. I wanted to embrace that imperfection by ruining the footage even more, rather than aiming for some sort of crystal quality that would have been impossible.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?

It's application in Final Cut is very intuitive, it doesn't take long to render and easily forms a part of your work flow without needing to read a manual or spend too much time thinking. It's a visual artist's plugin, not a programmers plugin - which appeals to me!

Would you recommend Digieffects to a friend or colleague?

Absolutely.

Willy B
TV For Radio

Tell us about TV For Radio

The name of the company really says it all.  We're in the imaging business.  That is, we recreate the visual aspect, sound & feel of radio stations all over the country.  In short, TV For Radio produces commercials & promos for the broadcast industry.  After years of work in Boston radio ("Hey everybody, it's Willy B! spinning the hits!"), We packed up the Mazda Miata and headed off into the sunset.  Actually, it was midtown Manhattan. The doors for TV for Radio we're opened and we haven't looked back since. Well, we did look back a couple of times, but it scared us and smelled kinda funny. Our studio is now located at base of the Berkshire Mountains in Connecticut.

What tools do you use?

First thing in the morning, it's the Jack LaLanne Juicer.  Love that freshly squeezed zing!  Then it's all about After Effects, the core of all of our work.  The arsenal also includes:  Autodesk 3D Studio Max, Sony Vegas and all things Adobe CS4.  The studio is primarily PC, but we're making room for a new iMac Quad monster.

How did you find out about Aged Film and Damage?

After unsuccessfully searching for hours (ok, minutes) for my Digieffects CineLook 1.0 disc from the nineties, I jumped on line and was quickly & pleasantly surprised by the "Aged Film" tool.  While there, it only made sense to grab "Damage" .  I used both plugins the minute after downloading and the client was thrilled with the end results.

Tell us about this latest project using Aged Film and Damage.

A client called on a recent Friday morning.  "Hey we have a bunch of video we shot around town and our radio station is launching a new web site and talent line-up.  We want to post only one video on our web site for four days as a stunt."  "And" (you know the rest of this story) "we need it in twenty four hours!"

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?

What I like most about Digieffects tools is After Effects.  After Effects without Digieffects tools simply wouldn't be After Effects at it's best. In this twitter filled, MY - FaceBook - Space, Boob toob, YouTube environment...The world is craving visual content...Yesterday.  Digieffects tools gives us the speed of now, while offering visual, virtual super eye candy at great price points.  I don't believe I've produced a single TV spot without Digieffects tools.

Would you recommend Digieffects to a friend or colleague?

I would insist...

Matt Silverman
Bonfire Labs

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Tell us about Bonfire Labs
Simply put we specialize in "motion picture" design for any medium. Our work ranges from traditional TV spots to a city block of lights in Times Square to UX design for various devices. We work with ad agencies, design firms, and directly with Fortune 500 companies to tell their stories through motion. Our company is the sister company of Phoenix Editorial, one of San Francisco’s leading commercial editorial houses.

What tools do you use?
Our studio uses the right tool for the right job, but the hammer in our arsenal is Adobe After Effects. Almost everything we do runs through AE at some point. Other tools currently in my Mac’s dock today include Maya, Cinema4D, Boujou, Nuke, Final Cut Pro, InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. We also have flame and smoke for client supervised finishing.

How did you find out about Falloff Lighting?
We’ve been using the Falloff Lighting plug-in since it was first released by Buena a number of years ago in the Depth Cue suite. These plug-ins have been a secret weapon in our studios toolbox. At the time the plug-ins filled a temporary void in After Effects which I was sure would soon be addressed by Adobe. It’s now over five years later and unfortunately these features are still missing. Digieffects has since taken on the package, and are doing an amazing job updating the plug-ins and giving them the love they deserve. It’s great to see Falloff Lighting available a la carte for only $49. Now everyone can get this much needed feature for a very reasonable price.

Tell us about this latest project using Falloff Lighting.
When Adobe hired us to create the launch stinger for CS4, we needed to create a transition to tie together three disparate scenes. Our solution was to dive into the Master Collection box which contained cubic "rooms" based on the adobe mnemonics. We created these rooms with the camera inside intersecting 3D boxes (made from AE solids) lit with AE‘s lights. These lights shoot their light indefinitely, so what initially looked flat came to life when Falloff Lighting was applied. The subtle gradations and glows simulated the look of a raytraced 3D shader. But unlike a 3D scene, it rendered in minutes instead of hours. And it’s incredibly simple to use.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?
Digieffects has always been known for creating stylistic plug-ins to solve common post-production problems with simple to use tools. When we need to add an element to a shot like scanlines or video interference we go straight to our Digieffects tools. Now with the addition of the Depth Cue tools Digieffects is charging into the world of utilitarian plug-ins to fill the gaps found in After Effects, and the a la carte pricing will allow everyone to join the fun.

Would you recommend Digieffects to a friend or colleague?
I just did this morning!

David Schindler
Atlanta Spirit

Tell me about Atlanta Spirit

Atlanta Spirit, LLC is the parent company of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers and the world-class entertainment venue Philips Arena. The arena itself is named after the founding partner Philips Electronics. Since opening in 1999, the Philips Arena has consistently ranked among the top 10 concert and event arenas in North America. You can find us online at www.PhilipsArena.com.

What is your role?

I head up the video production department for the Atlanta Spirit and Philips Arena. We handle all video features for our two local sports teams, as well as our own in-house shows. My staff and I are always looking for products that help us realize our artistic vision.

Digieffects software meshes well with our production pipeline. We cut the video on an Avid system and do our compositing in After Effects. In a relatively short timeframe, we have already put Delirium and Berserk to good use on music videos of players, sponsorship bumpers, and some NHL video skits.

Examples

In this video clip, we introduce fans to the Atlanta Hawks A-Town Dancers. The Berserk Filmstrip effect allows us to innovatively display all the dancers which we then feature separately in their own two-minute videos. We also added some pizzazz with the Delirium Lens Flare plug-in.

This example is a fun skit that we aired while “a member of the opposing team, in this case the Washington Capitals” was put in the penalty box. As a joke we had “the penalty box offical” taser “the Capitals player”. The rippling blue flares were created using Delirium Electrical Arcs.

This is a follow-up shot to “the Capitals player” being tasered. At the end of the clip, we had him disappear as joke, leaving behind just smoke created with Delirium

This piece was used for when the players took the ice.  Here we really wanted to separate the player from the background. We Rotoscoped the player effected him and then applied Berserk’s newsprint to the background, it added a unique look and interesting texture.

What do you like most about Digieffects products?

Digieffects products help us to continually expand our toolbox of effects. We love being able to save money doing the work in-house. After all, the end result is the same whether we work on the project or outsource it to a high-end FX house. Digieffects gives us the freedom to be creative ourselves!

Roger Nall
11:11 MediaWorks

Tell me about 11:11 MediaWorks.

11:11 MediaWorks is a boutique visual effects studio that specializes in feature film, television, commercial, music video, and interactive multimedia projects for special presentations and events. We’re located in sunny Van Nuys, California where I started the business in July of 2001.

Some of our recent credits include MGM's wild comedy Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj, Warner Borthers' Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Columbia's Wayens Brothers film, Little Man as well as the Steven Spielberg film The Terminal. Our talented staff has worked on a variety of projects including: Planet of the Apes, Exit Wounds, Swordfish, The Tuxedo, and The Core.

When did you start using Delirium?

I’ve been using Delirium since it first came to market in the late 90’s. In fact, I teamed up with developer Chris Athanas to write and design the Muzzle Flash filter specifically for us.

Why did you need a Muzzle Flash filter?

Muzzle Flash is the visible light emitted by superheated gases and flame produced by the burning gunpowder when a firearm is discharged. The size and shape of the muzzle flash is dependent on the type of ammunition being used and the individual characteristics of the muzzle of the gun being fired.

In movies people aren’t actually shooting each other so this effect has to be created in post. We found ourselves wasting time keying and compositing the desired result by hand. Chris was able to develop a tool to generate this automatically. Now all we do is input where the end of the gun is located, the direction of the flash, and on which frame(s) the flash should appear. Muzzle Flash is truly a plug-in-play solution. We use it on big budget films and direct to DVD projects. It works for both automatic weapons and pistols.

What are your other favorite filters in Delirium?

We used Loose Sprockets for a scene where a movie being projected on a wall got caught up and burned out the projector. Loose Sprockets helped to convey the effect of the busted camera bouncing around.

Video Malfunction helped us transmit an electromagnetic pulse screwing up the reception on computer monitors for a SciFi show. We’d created the video sequence and composited in the footage on the screens.Video Malfunction helped us to create bars and stretch the clips to make them look like the monitors had stopped working.

Sparks are great for simulating the flashes generated by a welding torch. We used this filter on a malfunctioning robot squirting sparks off its head. It also worked well on a scene where two chainsaws were banging against each other.

Turbulent Noise is a fractal particle generator that creates random patterns of color or black and white. We apply Turbulent Noise to matte channels for an ultra organic fade out that has weird shapes and density. This way the fade out is not even across the frame.

Rainfall came in handy for a scene where we needed to merge two different sources of footage, one being wider. In the wider shot, we added rain to the foreground and created different layers for to set where the rain would hit in the alpha channels. This was a lot easier and cheaper than creating 3D rain.

Would you recommend Delirium to a friend?

Yes, the Delirium package includes nearly 50 special effects plug-ins some of which you can find in other packages. The Delirium advantage is that these filters are usable right out the box. This is because many of the plug-ins AutoAnimate, meaning that they animate as soon as they are applied to an image. Getting quick results is crucial in tight deadlines. With Delirium, all you have to do is click the preset pop-up. You can then save, load, and modify them to just what you need.

Matt Silverman
Phoenix Editorial & Designs

Watch the commercial here:
http://www.phoenixedit.com/spots/html/gfx/sprite_lebron.html

Tell me about Phoenix Editorial & Designs
Simply put we specialize in all aspects of post-production including creative editing and motion graphic design, visual effects, and online editing. San Francisco’s most creative ad agencies including Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Publicis & Hal Riney, Venables Bell & Partners, Heat (formerly Black Rocket), and Duncan Channon have turned to us for our skill in story-telling that makes a commercial memorable.

Our clients see us as a new generation of talent-driven post houses that combine the dynamics of a small creative shop with infrastructure and expertise to complete technically challenging spots and videos in High-Definition TV.

For how long have you been using Damage?
When I started using After Effects twelve years ago, there were not many plug-in vendors so we used whatever we could get. Digieffects was one of these early pioneers, and I was quick to jump on each set that they released. I have been using Delirium since the product shipped, nearly a decade ago. Damage takes some of the best concepts from Delirium and packages them up in a plugin that really helps destroy footage.

What was your latest project using Damage?
The agency, AKQA, was creating an internet tie-in to the TV spots which were debuting in the NBA All Star Game. We developed a Lebron James Sprite video for the sprite.com homepage. The idea was that people would buy a bottle of Sprite and under the cap would be a number which consumers could use to access a virtual mixing board on the website. Consumers could then re-mix Lebron's tracks, and the winning track would then be used on the TV spot. The homepage played the video which explained how the process worked.

What Digieffects filters did you use on the spot? 
Our direction from the agency was to create a "holographic Princess Leah" look. Since AKQA wanted a holographic look against black, we needed to change the look from Princess Leah to something else, since the Star Wars holographic look utilized transparency which would not work against black.

We started with DVCProHD source footage shot against greensceeen, and keyed the shots in After Effects using Red Giant Software Primatte Keyer and Key Correct. We then shifted channels to create a hi-contrast grayscale version of the isolated Lebron James. Next we tinted the mid-tones to green.

We used a stock video clip that we have in our library to get the initial scan-line look. We created this scanline look using the Damage Interference effect for a Yahoo TV spot. At the time, we pre-rendered a grayscale scanline effect into a ten second QuickTime (since rendering was very slow in 1999) and have used this element on numerous projects since. We then applied this pre-render with a transfer mode to get the initial scanline look, and added a slight flicker through a wiggle expression.

Since Lebron is a basketball player not an actor, our editor spent a good amount of time editing the dialog together. This meant a lot of jump cuts to extend gaps in Lebron’s voiceover as well as jumpcuts from closeups to extreme closeups. We used After Effects’ Wave Warp filter along with the Damage Skew effect as a utilitarian tool to cover up these jump cuts, while at the same time adding an interesting addition to the holographic look.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?
Digieffects plug-ins solve complex visual problems with simple to use plug-ins. Like the majority of "old school" plug-ins, some might say that they create "canned effects." This is not a bad thing. When you need an old film look or video interference, Digieffects plug-ins allow you to quickly set up a killer look. But as you can see from the Sprite job, in the right artistic hands these canned effects in combination with other plug-ins can produce amazing results which do not seem "canned" at all.

Would you recommend Damage to a friend or colleague?
Definitely, you get a lot of handy plug-ins in one set

Dan Warvi-Jason Hirsch
KUSA-TV

Tell me about KUSA-TV

KUSA-TV is the number one local news source in Colorado, based in Denver. In April 2004 the station set the record by becoming the first NBC affiliate to broadcast in HD. Today the station airs roughly nine hours of news a day, and produces about two to three commercials a week. This number can double during sweeps.

Dan Warvi - Graphics Producer for KUSA-TV

"We use After Effects and the plug-in Delirium to produce all of our commercials because it is reliable and fast. The presets available within Delirium have been a saving grace.  I don’t have the time to really finesse the effects since the stuff I make has to be turned out in a day. Delirium has great presets for almost all of the effects, and I can go from there quickly to make what I want.  For example, we recently created a commercial promoting a health fair in which we used Delirium’s Fairy Dust special effect. It added just enough sparkle for a clever, yet timely, spot."

Effect: Fairy Dust

Jason Hirsch - Art Director for KUSA-TV

“I like Delirium’s diverse selection of plug-ins. There are some very good options for creating desired results with Delirium. Whether I need a realistic looking camera shake, or an electrifying effect that gives a “spark” to my animation, Delirium provides me with the needed tools. I think these are a great for anyone in the motion graphics field.”

 

 

Effect: FIRE
Summary: I used this effect to give the shatter a bit more life. It’s handy to have the option to generate the fire from a layer’s alpha channel.

Effects: ELECTRICAL ARCS and FIRE
Summary: I used Fire to create a big explosion (fire ball). I used Arcs to generate the effect of the scoreboard giving off electricity which creates the fire ball. This was one of the first projects I used Delirium on.

Effect: LOOSE SPROCKETS
Summary: I had a very cool camera move around the stadium, but something seemed very unnatural in the transition into the spin. I actually used Loose Sprockets to create a blurring effect, which smoothed out the transition from flying the camera toward the stadium and starting the spin around.

Effects: LOOSE SPROCKETS and FIRE
Summary: Loose Sprockets gave me the earthquake effect that I was going for once the giant stamp hit. Fire was used to create the flames shooting up from the logo, which is a reference to what the AFL actually does before games with fire.

Effect: ELECTRICAL ARCS
Summary: This plug-in worked great for creating that electrical field that you fly through in this tunnel.

Dr Rolando José Rodríguez De León
Images in Motion

Tell me about Imagination in Motion.

We are a very young company, working on video editing and compositing for Independent TV programs. Our goal is to help our clients solving post-production problems. From previews of the shows, to look, feel and concepts. Our Master editor has worked on the field since 1991 using Premiere 2.0 and he’s a graduate of the School of Graphic Design.

The diversity of our costumers is high, so some may want to have a big presence of special fx and filters while other just one that little touch that leave people talking.

What tools do you use?

We use several tools for editing, compositing and 3D animation. Our workstation have After effects, Final Cut Pro, Lightwave 3D just to mention a few.

How did you find out about Damage?

We were looking for a filter to do artifacts and television interference, for a special costumer, searching on the net we find Damage, saw the demo on digieffects website on buy it on the spot.

Tell us about this latest project using Damage.
We have a Wrestling company that wants a look of interference and artifacts and a lot of “Damage” for their wrestlers challenges, so their promotions get a lot of treatment. Needless to say, they are happy about the result it gives them.

Which Damage effects did you use on the project?
The first one (id of an animation tv) they wanted artifacts, interference and noise for the first few seconds so people will think that there was something wrong with their tv sets. Now, we used a lot on RXW Zona Impactante, a 1 time per week wrestling show.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?
The Easiness of use, the quality of the filters, the levels of interaction, you can ‘make’ the same filter look radically different just by tweaking the controls, the products made by Digieffects have a Quality of their own.

Would you recommend Damage to a friend or colleague?
I wait until someone ask ‘How did you do that?’ to tell them about Diggieffects. With the animation id, I got a call from the tv station saying that there was a problem with the beginning of the tape, it had dropped frames and interference, they could not believed it was a filter and that was how the Id starts. I really love Damage!

Lia Starace
Splice Girl Post

Tell me about Splice Girl Post

I am the sole owner and editor of Splice Girl Post Inc. in New York. I've been in business for 6 years. My main client is Showtime. There I edit promos, trailers and editorials for their hit shows Weeds, Californication, The Tudors and The United States of Tara as well as theatricals. Some of my other clients are VH1, MTV and Fuse Networks. There I work on ½ hour and hour long specials. I also edit documentaries for Wild Wind Productions. The projects we have completed were for Metal Blade Records and Roadrunner Records.

 

What tools do you use?

My primary tool is Final Cut Pro. I also edit using AVID and I do some
work with After Effects.

How did you find out about Damage?

When I was learning After Effects about 8 years ago, a facility I was
working in had some Digieffects filters and I was very impressed with
them. So when I needed to buy some for my own rig, I went straight to the
website to see what was available for what I needed.

Tell us about this latest project using Damage
My latest project was for mastervolume.com. It is a stop motion animation
company that shot and directed a video for a band called Austrian Death
Machine for Metal Blade Records. You can see the video here.
http://www.splicegirlpost.com/final_choppa.mov

Which Damage effects did you use on the project?
I used the interference and skew filters throughout. We needed to have
television screen interrupted and I wanted to give the overall video a
subtle texture. Damage was perfect for the job.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?
I like most the ease of use and the fact that it doesn’t take too long to
render.

Would you recommend Damage to a friend or colleague?
Absolutely. I already have.

Robert McGowan
Media Edit

Tell me about Media Edit

I have been working for my very small production company for 5-6 years and have many roles including producer, camera, editor and compositor.
I am always looking for new projects and strive to get the best quality of work for my clients, being an editor as well helps when filming and being a cameraman helps for the editing....

What tools do you use?

I use mainly Final Cut Pro for editing, but also know Avid very well and use only After Effects for my compositing work. It really is superb and every new version comes with something special. I also really like working with Color when I have a grading job.

How did you find out about Damage?

I did a little reasearch on the internet and there are a few plug ins that met my requirement, Damage seemed the best for the price, I have absolutely no regrets using it. It's one of the best plug ins I have ever purchased and was more than what was required for this project. The very helpful tutorials show what it is capable for doing and gives you great incentive to get stuck in.

Tell us about this latest project using Damage

Well when I was approached to film the promo for the two guys (Pure Slime) I really wanted this video to be different and I wanted to stamp my mark with something special. I had been interested in 3D (anaglyph) for a while and did my research, talked to various people and forums and generally got gened up on the subject. As is always the case budget was an issue, we had about 2,000 British Pounds not much when we had to hire in the equipment and pay studio fees. We eventually settled on the Panasonic HVX 200 camera (DVCproHD) because of the 4:2:2 colour space, very important for green screen - we also used 2 x Sony A1's for a few cut away shots. Filming in stereo meant that we had to use 2 cameras (one for each eye - so to speak). We got all our material from a green screen studio (Northwood) in south east London and began the arduous task of compositing, of course everything takes twice as long because you have twice the amount of material, some shots worked and some didn't. We got an off line edit and then took everything into after effects as SD. I didn't think my machine would cope with HD, I think I made the right decision my Mac Pro with 7GB of ram did sruggle at times. If you put an expression on the timeline and try a RAM preview this becomes obvious.

I had been aware of Damage for sometime and when treatment for the latest video (pure slime) was dreamt up I thought this was the perfect time to use it. It really has everything you could want for the video de-grading 'look' and I loved the interference and Skew filters. They really brought everything to life and changed the workflow of the project, without them I would still be working on the project now!

Well it took me approximately 3 months working off and on the project, with the directors coming in every week to stick there oars in and provide helpful critisism (all constructive of course). The client seemed more than happy with the final product.

Which Damage effects did you use on the project?

In various quantities I used all 4 effects although I think what brought to life the project more than anything was the 'Skew and 'Interference' filters. They were what I was really after and changed the 'look' of everything.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?

Well its such an easy set of filters to use, the layout of the variables is simple and easy to understand and if you get lost you can always apply the presets. These work like a dream and you can tweak them to you hearts extent. It's easy to get lost in the amount of variation, even though the layout is very simple to get to grips with...

Would you recommend Damage to a friend or colleague?

I would highly recommend the plug-ins for a friend. A superb product and low cost if you compare to other's available on the market. This set has everything you could need. It's one of my best purchases. Download the trial and just experiment, it won't cost a thing.

Steven Karageanes
Mass Effect Productions

Tell me about your business

Mass Effect Productions is the name of my one-man show where I do HD filmmaking and animation for my own projects over the last two years. I do all the post for my projects, including most music composition. I still work full-time as a sports medicine physician at the Detroit Medical Center in Michigan (as well as a wife and two young kids), so being able to control all production aspects around my schedule is vitally important.

In 2008, I produced two short films, and two full episodes of a children's TV show, "Becka and the Big Bubble, which just debuted on PBS in San Diego December 15th. My first short film, American Piety, won several awards and was screened in Cannes, Monaco, LA, NY, Tampa, and Colorado Springs. I just completed the second film, Le Derriere, last month. Outside of my films, my only client are the creators of the Becka children's books, Adam Schomer and Gretchen Wendel. I don't think I can handle a second.

What tools do you use?

For filming, I use my HVX-200 on a Manfrotto 516 head. For post, I am using Final Cut Studio with mainly After Effects and Photoshop. For instance, the children's show is live action mixed with animation, a la Blues Clues, so I am exclusively using After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator, then assembling the pieces in Final Cut. In addition to Simulate: Illuma,
I also use Beserk, Delirium, Damage, and Aurorix. My other favorite tool is ProAnimator for titles and text.

How did you find out about Simulate: Illuma?

I went to the first Final Cut users conference at the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mt Pleasant, MI, and met several true professionals in editing, compositing, and animation, and they preached the value of plug-ins for Final Cut and After Effects, and how much time they can save in their workflow. I met Michele Yamakazi from Toolfarm, who introduced me to a few plug-ins, including Digieffects. Once I tested it out, I was hooked.

Tell us about this latest project using Simulate: Illuma

The show, "Becka and the Big Bubble", has three stories about the intrepid Becka blowing a bubble big enough to carry her away to far-off (real) places, such as San Diego and India. In between, we have interactions between the host, Adam, and our animated friend, Becka. In the clip shown here, Adam has a conversation with his boots, who desire their own boots to wear because they're tired of being...walked on! Then, for the transitions into the three stories, Adam flies in a bubble along with Becka, trying to keep his cool while flying in the stratosphere.

So I wanted to maintain a cinematic feel to the show while integrating animation in three different forms and locations. Simulate:Illuma was a big part of achieving the different light effects for the various backgrounds and characters, to give different locations their own feel.

Which Simulate: Illuma effects did you use on the project?

In the first part of the clip (DVD menu animation for Becka and the Big Bubble), I used Radiance to blend the different locations involved in the stories together in a way that illustrates the magical book-comes-alive approach we used in the show. In the clip with Adam and the boots, I used Halo from Illuma, combined with Infinity Zone from Aurorix and Retinal Bloom and used on dark Northern-Lights-type animation footage, while blending a solid magenta layer on all of it. Other places in the show, I used Halo and LightTracer. It all worked wonderfully.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?

I liked the subtlety that Digieffects tools allows me to have, particularly with the Simulate:Illuma group. There's lots of backgrounds I could've obtained for the talking boots clip, but the ability to illuminate elements, rather than lighting them, in very deft strokes, allows me to achieve more cinematic looks and greater control of production. Plus, the time it saved to have these effects readily available to drop onto a clip in both After Effects and Final Cut was greatly appreciated.

Would you recommend Simulate: Illuma to a friend or colleague?

Already have.

Trish Podell
Ruggleini Studios

Tell me about Ruggleini Studios

Ruggleini is an experimental digital media studio which combines elements of video, special FX, 3D, animation, stills, and music to create contemporary motion graphic art.

What tools do you use?

I use a variety of software but for the MDM 007 video specifically I used the following: After Effects with several Digieffects plug-ins, Daz Studio with aniMate plug-in, Poser with eagle and safari 3D models, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sonicfire Pro.

How did you find out about Simulate: Illuma?

From the Digieffects website. I am always prowling for the next new idea for motion graphic art.

Tell us about this latest project using Simulate: Illuma

For MDM 007, I used all five of the included plug-ins in the Simulate: Illuma package. The five are Halo, Light Tracer, Luminus, Photogust, and Radiance. Of the five, Luminus is my favorite, and has become a staple for my workflow. My footage just doesn’t look right to me without it. I generally first use MPEG Streamclip to deinterlace my footage (a free high quality converter at http://www.squared5.com) and then bring the footage into After Effects to tweak color via curves and hue/sat. Next I drag and drop Simulate: Illuma’s Luminus plug-in onto the footage and change the glow mode in the effects control panel from the default setting of screen to multipy and adjust the source blend to taste. SWEET! (your settings will vary depending on your footage) My second favorite in the package is a tie between Halo and PhotoGust. They are both awesome mood enhancers. Halo provides an ethereal quality, and PhotoGust provides tension and focus. PhotoGust actually makes you feel like you are going to fall into the waterfall in MDM007.

I also very much like Radience which shifts your colors and also provides focus. LightTracker I find most useful for bringing life to static areas. I used it on the dog statues. All in all, you will find use for all five of the included plug-ins in Simulate:Illuma.

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?

They expand your artistic possiblities and are easy and fun to use.

Would you recommend Simulate: Illuma to a friend or colleague?

I would recommend Simulate: Illuma to a friend, collleague, or stranger. I believe once you try it you too will want it as part of your everyday video or motion graphic workflow.

Jack Tunnicliffe
Java Post Production

Tell me about Java Post Production

 

Click images for full size

 

Java Post Production was born in 1995 as a post production arm of our production company at the time. We saw budgets shrinking for the productions we were working on. Even then broadcasters were beginning to see the reduction in available revenues for television programs and series. One solution was to create a post production division and retain a part of the budget we had traditionally spent using traditional post production services.

The interest in our new editing system and capabilities was a big surprise to my partner and myself. While we had purchased our first editing system to service our own projects, we were faced with an unforeseen surprise... everyone wanted to come work with our new editing system to post their projects.

Almost immediately we purchased another system and were in the business of training editors. My partner and I at the time had a love for coffee beverages and the java scripting language was becoming popular on the internet. We chose the name Java Post Production and had a logo designed by a local designer featuring a coffee stain. This logo immediately won a national award for its design package.

What tools do you use?

We use Final Cut Pro for editing, After Effects and almost every plugin ever written. We use Mocha for Planar tracking, Silhouette Roto for heavy roto work, Illustrator, Photoshop, Maxon Cinema 4D for our 3D work as well as many other useful tools for creating effects and manipulating video. Some of these include, Particle Illusion, Video Purifier, Bitvice, Boujou Bullet to name a few. AJA Kona 2 and 3 video cards service our many edit suite computers.

 

How did you find out about FreeForm AE?

I believe I have used Freeform since it first became available. I can't remember how I found out about it initially. Probably from reading the After Effects user list which I have been a member of for all the years I have been an AE user. In fact I have used After Effects since it was called Cosa After Effects, before Adobe purchased it. Freeform is a tool with capabilities that doesn't exist in any other tool.

I constantly use Freeform to manipulate images. It is now so fast and efficient in its latest version I am inclined to grab it and drop it on a layer any time I have a problem with the image. Everything from lens vignettes where I wish to stretch the corner of the image slightly without scaling the entire image, or helping to stretch a 4x3 image out progressively towards a 16x9 image, retaining the proper aspect in the central portion of the image, Freeform is the right too for the job.

 

Tell us about this latest project using FreeForm AE

This week I was working on a project where a football fan had giant afro green hair (his team's color) grow out from his regular short cropped hair. To accomplish this the fan was shot against blue screen with no afro wig and with the green afro wig. In post it was my job to make this afro grow out of the actors head, expand beyond 100% scale and then snap back to its full size for sort of a cartoon effect on the reveal. To make the transition, it was not just a matter of scaling down the hair material to fit the man's real hair as the shape at the beginning would be so drastically different.

To the table, Freeform, the perfect tool for the job. Take any shape and manipulate it into any other shape in minutes. No scaling required, everything accomplished through changes in the grid structure available in Freeform. Simply determine a grid pattern, which is almost infinitely variable in Freeform, by the way, set one keyframe and start dragging control points until the new shape is accomplished. In minutes I had reduced the giant afro to the exact shape of the man's hair. Now, moving from the manipulated keyframe to a keyframe that was created before manipulation resulted in the desired transition. To create a cartoon over-expansion and retraction we created a keyframe that exaggerated the expansion beyond the natural size of the hair. Within minutes we had accomplished our desired effect with Freeform. I'm not sure how I would have done it with other tools.

Just for fun I tried to do it with some of the other AE tools available like reshape and the results were awful. Freeform was definitely the best tool for the job and gave me perfect results. The client wanted no changes when he saw the final effect.

 

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?

I like Digieffects tools because they have been around for a long time and I know they will be there when I need an upgrade or if I have a problem with a piece of software. I don't know how many applications or plugins I've purchased over the course of my career where the companies and the products have simply disappeared. Eventually these products can no longer be upgraded and you find yourself looking for a a replacement product or a new way to accomplish something with a tool that you used to use. I have confidence that Digieffects will always be there to help me out and continue to develop new tools for our industry.

 

Would you recommend Digieffects to a friend or colleague?

I would definitely recommend Digieffects to others. My experiences with their plugin products has always been positive. Digieffects filters were some of the first products I ever purchased when getting into this business and I now own almost every product they make.

Jim Minton
Minton Design & Motion

Tell me about Minton Design & Motion

Minton Design solves creative problems. Many of our clients are animation companies that come to us for concepts, storyboard presentations or creative consultation. Beyond motion we create corporate image, print, character design and illustration. Minton Design has a creative partnership with James Rodgers of SFO Design in San Francisco. His collaboration on projects large and small is invaluable. James’ web site designs for entertainment and corporate accounts include Cher’s World Tour, NBCi, The Grateful Dead and other distinguished clients. The combination of the “Two Jims,” Minton and Rodgers, allows us to confidently accept any creative challenge. We have won national and international awards including as Emmys, Tellys, New York and Houston Film Festivals, Broadcast Marketing, Broadcast Designers and Broadcast Designers Latin America to name a few. Our clients include many multi-national corporations and program producers We have created animated imagery for NASA, CBS, NBC, TNT, ESPN, Barney & Friends and Televisa to name a few. Our short films have screened internationally and won top awards for Animation and Effects.

 

What tools do you use?

We are all Mac, all the time with workhorse Mac Pros and lots of RAM. We use Adobe Suites heavily for web and motion and Apple FCP Pro Suite. Photoshop and Illustrator are our primary tools for conceptualization. After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop and Illustrator are standards in our design workflow. Plugins have given us the opportunity to embellish, refine and enhance our work. Digieffects plays a major role in our success and has for many years. You might say we are Digieffectophiles.

 

How did you find out about Digieffects?

I had already been a fan of Digieffects software, using them in Photoshop and After Effects. With updates to After Effects, many of our plugins were giving us problems or not working at all. The CS and CS3 curses put us in a bind not having the plugins we had loved, purchased and needed. I contacted Robert Sharp at Digieffects who helped me download information and update the software and getting got us back on track with our motion design and animations. Testing some of the newer plugins gave excellent results and exciting possibilities.

 

Tell us about this latest project using a Digieffects plugin

The Scab is a short film I animated, based on a short flash poem by award-winning horror author, Michael Arnzen. The Scab was one of eleven short films created by an international collective of filmmakers and new media artists. To match the theme of the story I added the look of vintage old film with Digieffects plugins. Lots of noise and grit but just a few scratches.

The current project I am working on incorporates both the Simulate: Illuma and Simulate Camera suites. I am animating a series of vintage photographs with the light leaks and dust you would imagine in the parlor 100 years ago. The project will employ 3D layers and Depth Cue. I am creating these as samples for a new personal demo reel to contrast the work on my commercial demo. The new reel will incorporate many experiments and unusual looks branching off from the work done in my short films. The new Minton reel should be available soon on our newly re-designed website.

 

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?

It is tough to say what I like best about the Digieffects plugins. Lots of controls to get extremely varied looks, sometimes to an extreme where it begins to look like something else. If not for these tools, my work would not have the environment and finesse these plugins can offer..

 

Would you recommend Digieffects to a friend or colleague?

I have been using and lauding Digieffects for years based on the results I have seen first-hand. They have been recognized as primary, de-facto must-haves. So, yes, I have been recommending these plugins. Why wouldn't I? These new Suites offer the creation of natural-light looks. One of the things I have continuously attempted to do is improve good design with an embellishment that appears natural or mimics real-world phenomena. The new plugins take creative potential to new, sophisticated highs. The tools need to be in every video designer and motion graphic artist's arsenal. Everyone's!

 

Christopher Werby
Pipsqueak Productions, LLC

Tell me about Pipsqueak Productions

Pipsqueak Productions is a boutique digital production firm. Our strength is in doing audience-focused design and very careful production work. We do web sites, videos, books, illustrations, and other communications pieces -- we've even created museum exhibits. Great products are a combination of great design and execution. We try to do both of those things across a wide range of media products. Sometimes we feel a bit like an amoeba: changing our shape depending on where the bits of food are. But we've been doing this for 14 years now and we've survived in an environment where a lot of other firms who were doing really great work have perished.

 

What tools do you use?

We're a Mac-centric shop and love software tools. So we use a bit of everything. For video and animation work, we use After Effects, Final Cut, Lightwave, a bit of Motion, and a lot of Photoshop. But it doesn't have to be all digital -- we also have an Oxberry Animation Table and aren't adverse to drawing cells by hand.

 

How did you find out about Simulate: Illuma?

I have a several suites of Digieffects Plug-ins: Aurorix, Berserk, Delirium, and Simulate: Illuma. Digieffects led the plug-in revolution and has been in the AE Zeitgeist since before the Cinelook days! And when I saw what the plug-ins in Simulate: Illuma could do, I knew I needed to add that to my bag of tricks.

 

Tell us about this latest project using Simulate: Illuma

This was a holiday card for a law firm who had offices in four locations, including one in Boise Idaho. Each location was to be featured in the animation. For Boise, we thought of snow. And for snow, we thought of Digieffects Snowstorm. Snowstorm is much more like a full-blown particle system than other snow effect plug-ins that I've seen. And I used that ability to create believable variation over the four seconds of screen time to do a quick transition from late Fall to early Winter, building the effect in depth with multiple layers. But I wanted to add a little extra magic to the shot as we transition out of it. Adding Luminus to the front layer, an inspired after-thought, did just that. I was amazed at what a difference it made to the shot.

 

What do you like most about Digieffects tools?

I like that they work immediately but that they don't lock me into a fixed look. The tools are flexible enough to get me what I have in mind. Color grading makes a huge difference to the look of raw video or film. Digieffects tools are like that -- they push the look of the work to another level.

 

Would you recommend Simulate: Illuma to a friend or colleague?

In a heartbeat! Tools like this really help give that extra sparkle to a project. I wish that I had some outrageous projects to allow me to really let loose with the creative power of these plug-ins, especially in combination with each other.