The goal of my NAB 2015 Demo for Rampant Design Tools was simple. Destroy the stigma of the “Stock Element”!
It was an exciting NAB this year. I’ve got my complete rundown coming very soon, but I wanted to briefly side step from that to talk about something that I did talk a lot about at NAB this year, and that is Rampant Design Tools and their library of “Style Elements”. It’s funny, before I started my first demo, I referred to the RDT library of effects as “Stock Footage”, and Sean Mullen, President and CEO corrected me, and told me that they refer to them as “Style Elements” which, lets be honest, is really what they are. They are stylistic elements that you will add to your footage in Media Composer, to enhance your work and wow you clients. When I sat down to figure out what I wanted to do for my demo, I found out that Monica Daniel was going to be doing a demo on “How Effects Change the Tone of a Story”. This made me sit back and think for a second. Did we really need multiple people talking about using elements to create a certain “feel” in a piece? The short answer is no, we didn’t. I figured I would let her handle that. So then, what exactly would I talk about?
Well, I figured the first thing I wanted to was to break the stigma of a “stock element” (yes, I know they are called “Style Elements”, but most people don’t refer to them as that, so for this one instance, they will be called “Stock Elements”). Most people immediately think plug-ins are better. I agree 100% that plug-ins have their place in your workflows, but they should never take the place of getting your work done as quickly, and as good looking as possible. Let’s be honest, what do most people do when they get a new plug-in? The go right for the presets to see what the plug-in can do. RDT’s Style Elements are the presets, without having to learn what the “plug-in” does. That’s the beauty of them. So many great looks (sometimes in the hundreds per catagory), at the click of your mouse. Now there are some other concerns like importing and organization, as well as accessing the effects as quickly as possible, but you can check that out below.
Now, one last thing that I wanted to point out is that Rampant is giving away a ton of free (yes, that’s right, free) stock elements that you can download by heading over to 4Kfree.com . Remember, in the end, that RDT’s style elements are simple to get (download), simple to access (Avid AMA Link to), simple to organize (Favorite Bins), simple to composite with (Avid FX/BCC/Genarts Sapphire), and in the end, you’re only limited by your imagination!
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