blow out deals...
 

For those who don't know yet, Digital Juice has got some excellent deals going on--I just picked up the two wedding ETKs and they throw in 2 JumpBacks (SD or HD), all for 150! I'm sure they're blowing out the SD stuff to make room for HD, but I got my money's worth...

ETKs... not for $150
 

I am seeing the Wedding ETKs, but they are still $400. Is there a specific item you found?

jason

Tempting offers but I still find this kind of stuff a bit too cheesy for my tastes.

OK Found it....
 

Looks like it was the 9th Deal of Christmas. They are sure snazy, but I wonder how much I would use them for my current style..... probably not too much. But I could use them on the DVDs and credits because that is where I usually include lots of highly stylized elements though this is mostly because I am trying to keep the footage to as simple a presentation as possible.

Completely unrelated to this thread.... I seem to be more willing to spend money on software and editing tools than on hardware (ie still am renting a camera, don't own wireless mic, no lighting, etc). I wonder if that indicates where I show the most interest?

jason

Chees Factor
 

I do not use lower 1/3rd and other overlays / transition for just that reason. I prefer straight cross fades or possibly the flash transition. That is about as fancy as I get during the actual wedding video.

Photo Memories might use some non-standard transitions (page peels / squeezes / wipes).

Now for a corporate video I am working on, I might need some lower thirds for the speaker's name. But for those I think I might just use a gradient or something else that is simple.

jason

Yeah, I very rarely use anything besides cuts and crossfades for my videos or slideshows, but for openings and motion backgrounds for menus and AE 3dcam movement through stills the deal was too good to pass up.
Lower thirds can be appropriate at times, particularly in a credits piece.
But I agree with both of you, avoid using the cheesy stuff.

I think we're on the same page. For my AE 3D cam movement I normally just generate a long motion background using a plug-in effect from "Sapphire" and spice it up a bit. (But a shorter looping one would be nice).

For my wedding videos, I also use almost exclusively the simple stuff (fades, washes, and dissolves). I find them to be easiest on the eyes and help produce a graceful viewing experience, but I do round them out with a few simple touches from digital juice. It is true the buying the packages ends up getting you a bunch of cheese, but purchasing when the deal is hot is still a good move if there are some things there that you think will set your work up a cut above.

Only a small portion of my work involves wedding videos. I do a great deal of promo work as well, and I have found digital juice to be a life saver. When I started out with their stuff, I didn't know about their periodical deals so I purchased a few packages at full price, but then I got on their email list and get regular deals that are really hard to pass up.

I have to shop with smarts as there are still a lot of things I have no interest in, and will likely not use - (such as their StackTraxx or Juice Drops libraries) and as I said, in package form, you will still end up with stuff you won't use, but if the deal is right, it bears consideration.

Their products really help with alot of my work, in making great backgrounds for green screen talking head interviews, or customizing a DVD menu system, etc.

For their current "12 deals of Christmas" I ended up rounding out my dj library with stuff that I know I will be using with projects I already have lined up over the next few months, so the investment was a great deal for me. Just this week, I ended up spending $700 on products that normally list for nearly $3400. Quite a savings that helped me pretty much complete my library, but as I said, shop 'smartly'. While I have ended up spending a lot of $$$ this year with dj, I spent many hours gauging what I expected to be producing, and selecting what I thought would help me a great deal in production, and then waiting for the best deals to come along.

Now, I pretty much have all but 6 of the jump back collection, a handful of the motion design elements, the sound efx collection, the entire ETK collection and the full videotraxx library. (The only thing I don't expect to get much use out of is the Wedding ETK 2, but I had an empty spot in a package deal and ended up adding it since I had everything else I needed. I think the Wedding ETK 1 is far more graceful, but even then I use it sparingly as too much would cheese up the wedding video, IMO.)

And added benefit with DJ, is that they produce regular short video pieces that you can download from their site that demonstrate production techniques as well as creative ways of using their products in projects. I have learned a great deal with this resource, and it helps me save a lot of time as well.

All in all, a great deal for me, and their current promotion has been really beneficial.

Just my dime. (2 cents at the current rate of inflation.)
-Jon