In last month’s Storyboard, we announced Video Essentials III, the latest installment in the Essentials product line. This collection grew out of the needs and desires of our customers, as well as the creative minds of our development team.  We wanted to share with you the “behind the scenes” of how this product line came into fruition.  Torley Wong, our creative product designer, shares his Video Essentials III story with us.

In the early phases of creating Video Essentials III, it became evident that there were several cohesive trends bonding the plugins. Each plugin was born because of a need— either for our own video projects or those of friends and customer requests — and that’s why they are in this collection. They’re practical: all killer, no filler.

One of the things we focused on and tried to answer was, “Why doesn’t our NLE have one built-in?” Split Screen is one that fits the bill, because it’s so essential, for lack of a better word, to do this in fewer steps. Anyone who has wrestled with setting up a dividing line, moving tracks around, and so forth in their editor can now find all of that good stuff in ONE plugin.

Split Screen

Another trend that emerged when we found ourselves doing our effects was that we knew we are not the first but we can add our signature twists of fun and usefulness in the plugin. For instance, Gradient Tint is a simple tool that fades between two colors, pretty basic. But what about our context-focused controls, like masking to allow some of the sky to bleed in as desired, and the lush blending modes? Image Mapper, at first looks like a Picture-in-Picture effect, but you quickly find out how you can curve the edges, warp the image, and keyframe to evolve over time.

Image Mapper

I have learned a lot through this desgn and development process, finding it beautiful to watch the Video Essentials III effects evolve and iterate to what you see today. Our team put a lot of personality and passion into this, like all of the NewBlue products. We look forward to what YOU create with Video Essentials III, especially uses we didn’t foresee.  Explore, make, and share with us — you could be featured in our Storyboard ‘Now Featuring’!

Discover NewBlue Video Essentials III today.