We recently made the call to do the majority of the remaining compositing for LVJ in After Effects and this is the latest and potentially final decision on the topic of ‘which software to use’. I thought it may be of interest to do a quick backtrack through all the compositing apps that have either been used or considered during the production of the movie.
Funnily enough, After Effects was the first app that was ever considered for LVJ, but at that time the cost of the software was prohibitive which led to the first app used in the movie being one called ‘Satori’; if I remember correctly it was free on the cover of CGI magazine. I can’t remember one thing about this app, whether it was any good or not, what it looked like or how it worked.
Next up was ‘Effect’ from Discreet Logic, before they became Discreet and before they became Autodesk. I guess it was the precursor to Combustion and as far as I remember was a great little app, plus I got a kick out of using an app made by a company that advertised high end stuff in Cinefex. 
After ‘Effect’ I drifted into ‘Combustion’ but was keen to explore the possibilities of node based compositing and saw an opportunity in XSI who was offering their FXTree included with the 3D app. From what I’ve heard FXTree is pretty much the same as Avid’s old ‘Media Illusion’ under the hood and although it was great for getting into node based compositing, it did seem a little out of date.
Then Apple crashed the price of ‘Shake’ which was just irresistable. Shake was used on dozens of shots from the movie and a tonne of freelance work, but it ain’t getting any younger and I was beginning to realise that perhaps After Effects would be more suited to the work in our movie, that of an indie/guerrila one.
