User Profiles

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.