eZedia Plug-Ins

Plug-ins Reviews

eZedia Plug-in Bundle for iMovie

QuickTiming.org Review
December 2002

Price: $69 bundled ($29 separately)

From: eZedia

iMovie, is ostensibly a consumer level product, and at $1000, Final Cut Pro is strictly a professional's tool. What about those of us who might not need all of Final Cut's raw power, but want to do some of its higher-end functionality like compositing effects? Well it turns out iMovie can do that too... with the right plug-ins. In this case the right plug-ins are in eZedia's Plug-in Bundle for iMovie. This is a high-powered trio that includes eZeMatte, eZeScreen and eZeClip. Between them they allow you to quickly and easily add images, borders, frames, themes, logos, movies, blue-screen and picture-in-picture effects.

While I like all the plug-ins in this bundle a lot, I found eZeMatte the most immediately useful of the three. This is a plug-in that allows you to add any kind of customized graphic to your iMovie. Frames and other edge treatments, overlaid graphics, even your company logo can be added to any movie clip in seconds. Take a Photoshop file with a transparent background. Position your graphics where you'd like them to appear over your movie. Import the Photoshop file and your done. The transparency carries across automatically. Simple and elegant, very intuitive and easy to use... I've used professional compositing tools costing far more that delivered far less.

Any George Lucas wanna-be out there should also take special note of eZeScreen for iMovie. Special effects compositing for movies and television often rely heavily on Green and Blue Screen effects (sometimes called chroma-key). If you've seen a weatherman standing in front of a video map on the nightly news, you've seen the effect. In a nutshell, that's what eZScreen does. It allows you to take a movie and layer it on top of another movie, then choose a color in that movie to make transparent. You can control the tolerance and transparency from another simple and intuitive interface.

eZeClip for iMovie allows users to layer video in iMovie, placing one iMovie clip atop another to create picture-in-picture (PIP) or split screen effects. Useful for anything where you need a before and after shot. Do you want to create and composite a Patty Duke Show style split-screen twin of yourself? A before and after side-by-side comparison of that remodeling job you did on your den? A shot of the NASCAR races with an inset of the roaring crowd? This is the tool that will let you do that. It comes with several ready made borders, can add simple drop shadows, and more.

I've been using professional composting tools for years, from Final Cut to After Effects and I kept wanting to compare features from those programs to these plug-ins. Then I realized, that the simple fact that this $70 plug-in pack even warranted comparison with those programs costing hundreds - even thousands of dollars was astounding in and of itself. Would I wish for more functionality? Yes, there are a few things I'd like to see added in the next rev. Spill suppression for eZScreen and the ability to select multiple transparent colors, chief among them.

The fact is, across the board eZedia's attention to usability and function is obvious. These are simple to use tools with an interface that fits well the overall iMovie design. I keep coming back to this word - elegant. Like iMovie itself, these tools are elegant. Novice filmmakers will find them easy to pick-up and use straight-away, and even old hands like me will find them well crafted additions to what is already one of the best consumer video editing applications on the market. For those who do need a little coaching, eZedia's web site has tutorials (both video and print), and active forums where you can find help and inspiration.

Conclusion: These plug-ins are a near perfect compliment to iMovie.

Q-Scale Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Q's

©2002 Clifford VanMeter. All screen captures and textual references are the property and trademark of their creators/owners/publishers.

Courtesy of QuickTiming.org

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