StageTools’s new version (2.0) of MovingPicture, a pan and zoom application for nonlinear editors, works with After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Media 100, and Premiere on the Mac platform.
The tool is designed to allow documentary and industrial filmmakers pan and zoom on high-resolution images. It takes scanned images up to 4,000 pixels and allows for “perfectly repeatable pans and zooms directly from a nonlinear editor’s timeline,” according to Bill Ferster, head of StageTools and the founder of West End Film and Editing Machines Corp. (EMC).
Rather than use an expensive and bulky motion-control rig or animation stand to create pans and zooms on stills, often requiring expensive photographic prints, MovingPicture takes high-resolution scanned images and allows for perfectly repeatable pans and zoom moves on a desktop computer, Fester said.
MovingPicture 2.0 offers such enhancements as per keyframe eases and QuickTime rendering, Fester said. He added that the US$199 application is very easy to use. The image appears on the screen. Dragging and sizing a framing box icon on top of it changes the view, adding key frames onto the timeline.
Editors can preview the motion in real-time without any rendering, so the design process is very rapid. The moves can be previewed in real-time, and finally rendered in high without ever leaving the editor’s timeline. Motion is field-rendered at sub-pixel accuracy, so motion is very smooth, and in full 32-bit color, Fester said.
A fully functional evaluation copy can be downloaded from the StageTools Web site.
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