eZedia Plug-Ins

Plug-ins Reviews

eZeScreen iMovie plug-in

By Philip Roy
NZMac.com Review
January 2003

One of the first things that you notice when installing one of eZedia's plug-in is that even the documentation and installation process looks great. Following on from an exceedingly simple installation process, you find that you have had the instruction booklet automatically placed in your documents folder, along with some sample movies that you can use to try out the plug-in. This really is a nice touch. The effort that eZedia has put in to the the first few moments of using the software is something the other plug-in developers really should take note of.

The plug-ins from eZedia tend to focus on doing one thing exceedingly well, rather than being a plug-in with a variety of options. This isn't a plug-in with multiple title options or a huge range of transitions. It's an effects plug-in... and one you're going to have fun playing with.

If you've ever seen superman flying on screen, Star Wars ships in the background behind someone talking, even fake news reports from people "in the field", then eZeScreen might be for you. Commonly referred to in the movie industry as 'Blue screen' or 'Green screen', the plug-in allows you to blend two movies together, but to select a colour from one movie to turn see-through. It doesn't necessarily have to be green or blue that you use, it can be anything, but these colours are often seen as being the most effective colours to choose and to blend out.

Obviously a plug-in like this was too good to ignore, so I set about testing it during a lunch break at work, ably assisted by one of my work colleagues (thanks Emma!) who is rumoured to have Hollywood aspirations. I'd have to admit that we didn't take the most technical of approaches to the task, but even with a green bed sheet pinned to a wall, the results were impressive. Emma also donned a green top at one point to highlight how you need to be wary of colours when working with the plug-in.

So, we filmed Emma waving and generally doing silly things in front of the green screen. We then started up iMovie with a movie of some fish in the sea swimming around and selected the plug-in. Then, we chose to import the movie of Emma and used an eye-dropper on screen to select the colour behind her as the colour we wanted to blend out. After only 15 minutes of effort, we were able to produce some pretty amazing results and it is easy to see that with a bit of time and effort, good lighting and good background colours, you could have a lot of fun.

Probably the only thing that might concern some users is the price. We get hit hard with the exchange rate at the best of times here in New Zealand, so the plug-in can seem a bit expensive. My advice would be to purchase the plug-in as part of the bundle that eZedia offers (their other plug-ins are just as superb), or make sure it is something that you know you are going to make a lot of use of.

You need to bear in mind that technically, the plug-in does perform some pretty complex stuff. I have to admit, that when I first started reviewing iMovie plug-ins, I saw them all as something 'fun' to go with a piece of freeware. In fact, they are a lot more sophisticated and powerful than that, and in some respects, the prices charge can be understood. This may seem a fun plug-in, but it is also very powerful when used well.

Once installed, there is no limit to the great things you are going to be able to do with this plug-in. With a little more thought than our hurried experiment, you'll be able to produce Hollywood style special effects right smack-bang in the middle of your living room.

Have fun.

Courtesy of NZMac.com
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