Soho facility joins forces with new plug-in developer

Easy Effects, a new software company focusing on the innovation of vfx plug-ins for editors, has announced the launch of Blaze, the first plug-in in its anticipated suite, ‘The Look’.
Aiming to make life easier for editors by implementing a unique custom interface, the software has undergone extensive beta testing at Nats Post Production, one of Europe’s largest Avid facilities.
Developed by well known commercials and promo director and editor Simon Maxwell (whose credits include, Adidas ‘Swim’ and Mick Jagger ‘Out Of Focus’) in conjunction with Paul Vandenberghe, Easy Effects is developing a range of visual effects plug-ins, of which Blaze is the first, designed specifically for editors and the offline and online market.
Maxwell said: “Historically, visual effects software has been developed mainly for the graphics market; however industry changes have meant that editors are increasingly called upon to create a graphics look or style as well as edit. Graphic designers, compositors and editors all work in very different ways and editors, generally, don’t have time to experiment with a complicated array of adjustments.”
Primarily aimed at Avid operators, Easy Effects’ The Look will provide an easy to use, powerful, suite of vfx tools designed exclusively for editors working on a range of editing platforms.
Soho based facility, Nats, known for its wealth of experience and highly respected and creative editors, as well as its close relationship with Avid, was the ideal environment to develop and test Easy Effects’ Blaze. The Easy Effects team held a fact finding forum at Nats, during which the participants described such issues as “having to come up with a new look or style immediately” and “very little time to experiment” as being the most common problems editors encounter when dealing with vfx work. Taking such views on board, the Easy Effects team set about designing Blaze. The plug-in has been exclusive to Nats for the last two months where the software was put through its paces on a number of programmes (Property Ladder, Universal Music International) to great acclaim.
Charles Leonard, Managing Director of Nats, said: “ We are very pleased to have been such an integral part of the development of this product. It’s a big step forward, in terms of software that is designed for this area of postproduction. The interface addresses the issues that editors, as opposed to compositors, face with creating vfx. For both client and operator to be able to see the desired look and then apply it with a simple point and click action is revolutionary in this market.”
With the principal aim of the Easy Effects development team being to make life easier for editors, the particularly unique design of the custom interactive interfaces has received a rapturous response as it enables the user to see immediately - via a series of thumbnail images - the wide range of looks and styles which can be achieved and therefore choose the desired setting quickly, rather than spending valuable time experimenting.
Now shipping, Easy Effects’ Blaze currently runs on all Avid AVX 1.5 compliant systems both PC and Mac OSX and is available via www.easyeffects.com for an introductory price (until January 2005) of $299/€299/£199.
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