Meet Dan Douglas, founder of Plug Video Productions. His interest in making movies began early. At fourteen he was consumed (maybe even obsessed) with recording family events using a VHS camera and a hip-mounted VCR and battery pack. On a nice summer day you wouldn’t find him outside playing, like other kids. Douglas was inside editing video footage - and today we have Plug Video Productions.

Dan Douglas

Since those formative years of editing, Douglas has used every type of video editing platform; from Video Toaster and Speed Razor to the more industry standards of Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, and Sony Vegas Pro. With his skill and love for movie making, he has forged a solid place in the wedding video production world where he exercises his creativity and his artistic skill. He has won numerous awards, including multiple WEVA Creative Excellence Awards, a first place Aegis Video and Film Competition, a first place Digital Video DV awards, and an Independent Film Productions Aurora Gold Award.

Recently, Plug Video Productions was given the opportunity to shoot a wedding in Roatan, Honduras, a breathtaking destination. Douglas jumped at the “once-in-a-lifetime chance” to capture footage that would provide a memorable end result.

“I knew that capturing the best shots was key to producing an excellent video, but even more important was the post production [process]. For me, post production means two things: speed and quality.”

Douglas is extremely particular about the effects packages he uses.

“I have used numerous effects packages including Boris FX, Magic Bullet, and NewBlueFX. I am very selective at which effects I use and having such a powerful arsenal of tools means selecting the right one for the job.”

To maximize efficiency and produce quality images he says,

“NewBlueFX is the perfect combination.”

After capturing visually rich and vibrant images in Honduras, Douglas wanted to ensure that the video effects he selected would produce the best possible end product. His assessment resulted in selecting several NewBlueFX plug-ins including; Color Fixer Plus, Rack Focus, Stabilizer, Shadows and Highlights, Soft Focus and Audio Scrubbers. Douglas graciously provided an explanation of how he used these effects and created a couple “before and after” video examples.

Douglas stressed the importance of making the images as vivid as possible. He goes on to explain,

“Using Color Fixer Plus, I found exactly what I wanted. The pre-set ‘vibrant’ made such a powerful impact on my clips that I applied it to my entire video. Color Fixer Plus allows me to gently bump saturation while applying film gamma — making my footage look more like film; shadows become more intense, and mid-color tones suddenly take on new life.”

He further explains

“Shadows and Highlights was the perfect enhancement to Color Fixer Plus. Adding shadows and deepening highlights are subtle enhancements that I used to create more dramatic, intense visuals by deepening the shadows on all of my footage.”

Shooting a wedding presents many challenges. Imagine shooting a wedding on a tiny island and having less than 30 minutes to capture all necessary footage, including the ceremony. Douglas admits,

“I had the peace of mind knowing that I’d be able to add enhancements like Rack Focus once I returned to the States.”

He adds that

“Rack Focus is one of my favorite effects. It allows you to add an extra dimension to your production by setting parts of your clips out of focus. This is a very difficult effect to do correctly and Rack Focus takes it a step further providing the ability to setup key frames, resulting in focus shifts, directing your attention from one part of an image to another.”

Rack Focus Example 1

Rack Focus Example 2

Just to make life interesting, the video was recorded on a moving boat.

“Shooting on a speed boat at full throttle along turbulent waters between islands is a challenge. Stabilizer, one of the most powerful effects I am happy to own, was the only friend I had. At first, I was concerned with how long it would take to use a plug-in that claims to stabilize your footage. In the older days of editing, you would have to setup several locking points that would take hours to correct motion called match moving. With Stabilizer, it’s as simple as dragging the effect onto any clip. The interface of Stabilizer is sexy and smartly designed. After clicking analyze, Stabilizer suddenly came to life and took care of all those time consuming actions associated with removing motion. I hit play and was blown away with how it improved my footage.”

Of course, in any wedding the center of the action is the bride. To give this bride the attention she deserved, Douglas used the Soft Focus plug-in, which he finds especially useful for wedding video production.

“A Bride generally doesn’t want to see HD close-up shots of herself in full blown clarity. Soft Focus includes an array of pre-sets that allow you to fine tune exactly how much softening you want, and selectively allows you to spread the focus to different parts of your imagine, which worked perfectly for framing the bride.”

Lastly, recording video on a small island in the middle of the ocean presents one more challenge: wind.

“Twenty mile-an-hour winds aren’t exactly the best friend to a videographer trying to record the audio to match these special moments. Luckily, I had another friend waiting for me at home called Audio Scrubbers. Audio Scrubbers is smartly designed and provides a plethora of options to help fix problems that simply cannot be avoided out in the field.”

Dan Douglas concludes with,

“I love all of NewBlue’s effects because of the ability to fine tune any effect and make it your own. NewBlue plug-ins have helped me to speed up my editing process and given me the functionality I demand, from concept to the final cut. I don’t have patience to wait for long render times and NewBlue allows me the ability to adjust the settings in real-time and instantly apply what I need on the fly.”

“Having the right tools for the job is what separates amateurs and professionals. Tools that increase your speed, efficiency and productivity are key to being successful. NewBlueFX has given me the edge I need to take my productions from ordinary to extraordinary.”

To learn more about NewBlueFX, visit us at http://www.newbluefx.com/.

For more information about Color Fixer Plus and Soft Focus, see NewBlue Video Essentials. To see Rack Focus and Shadows and Highlights in action, discover NewBlue Video Essentials II. In addition, be sure to check out NewBlue Stabilizer and Audio Scrubbers, all mentioned in this article.