Review - Time Collection June 14, 2004
The Time Collection V4.0a by CHV
Review - Time Collection June 14, 2004
The Time Collection V4.0a by CHV
Price $ 39.00
Review By Steve Douglas
New features, new functions and the completely new CHV field based rendering system make the Time-collection V4.0a a versatile tool for all time related jobs.
Christoph Vonrhein has come out with another interesting set of plug-ins for Final Cut Pro and Express focusing on the theme of time and its many dimensions. You can have a lot of fun with these plug ins, and with the right script, find them to be just the effects you may need.
One plug in I especially liked was the Long Exposure filter. This filter only affects moving objects thereby giving a real sense of both speed and time to those objects while the foreground and background remains relatively untouched. This filter alone is worth the cost of the entire collection.
Remember the old Twilight Zone episode with Burgess Meredith playing the man who loved to read? He hid in the bank vault to get away from his nagging wife; a doomsday bomb went off but the bank vault protected him. Now he could read all he wanted. He reaches for a book, his glasses fall off, and his vision is as blurred as the irony of the episode. No need to smear Vaseline on the lens, CHV's blurry vision filter has just done it for you.
Similar effects can be gained by using the "On Drugs" filter or even the 'Time Shadow Filter', depending on how you want it to look like. Each plug in has a diverse number of parameters for you to adjust. The Time shadow filter can also create ghost images which follow the moving person or object around. There are a number of ways you might want to use this.
We have all seen the drug or booze addled individual lose his equilibrium, his vision blurs and space begins to spin in a tunneling vortex of sight and sound. The time tunnel filter can be fine tuned to create a number of these effects easily. I showed this to a friend who produces industrial training films and he wanted to buy it right away.
The graphic doesn't do the Time Smear filter justice, however, this filter creates a trailing aura in whatever color you chose to follow and/or precede a moving object. The opacity of the trail is adjustable as well as whether you want past or future pixels to leave a trail. Of course, you can have both past and future at the same time for a unique effect.
Some of the filters I found most enjoyable and useful really can't be shown here with a graphic. The Staccato filter works much like a suped up strobe filter. It is very cool, in that it enables you to create a time-lapse effect, which is fully adjustable via a slider as well as having the ability to determine the type of blending.
The Random Frames generator is most unique. With this generator you can place a clip or an entire short film into the well and a multi-framed slide show is created taking individual frames from the clips to generate an entire show. Sort of like seeing your life go by as your parachute fails to open in the moments before the sudden stop hurts worse than the fall.
Christoph Vonrhein must love his work because for the inexpensive price of his plug ins he can't be getting rich. With his plug in collections you can build a fine library which will handle most any assignment. This Time Collection is certainly worth taking a look at.
Steve Douglas has been an underwater videographer and contributor to numerous film festivals around the world. The winner of the 1999 Pacific Coast Underwater Film Competition and the 2003 IVIE competition, Steve has also worked on the feature film "The Deep Blue Sea" and is one of the principal organizers of the San Diego UnderSea Film Festival. Steve leads both African safari and underwater filming expeditions and is based in San Diego. Feel free to contact him.
Review copyright © Steve Douglas 2004
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