What convinced you to purchase VideoToaster?

Since back in Amiga days, I was itching to get my hands on NewTek's VideoToaster. I even considered buying some NTSC gear just to be able to do this. Now, finally, I can use NewTek's VideoToaster even more powerful than the original VideoToaster, so nobody had to convince me to buy the VideoToaster.

One has to understand, that the situation at an art school is quite different from film schools: most students often come up with ideas that are beyond the capability of mainstream video production, but without time to learn much more than the basics, it can be difficult to implement. On the other hand, there are always a handful of very advanced students, working exclusively with video, cartoon, games, performance and 3D animation. Our facilities have to serve both the beginning and the advanced students. What you need to pull this off is something with a seemingly impossible combination of simplicity, speed, quality and flexibility.

What do you like about VideoToaster in a learning environment?

From the beginning, my plan was to have a workstation with the highest quality, just as an engine for inspiration. In just the two months we have been working with VideoToaster, we were seduced by both the speed of the machine and the extreme simplicity of VT-Edit. So, now we are thinking in terms of having VT-based workstations as our main tool for both beginning and advanced student projects.

Why did you feel it was important for students create their own effects, instead of using plug-ins?

We were part of the digital revolution from day one. We actually bought the very first educational license from Discreet Logic at a time there were no plugins for NLE’s. In other words, we had to create our own effects, and we’ve had no regrets. It’s extremely important to teach the students precise work habits. It’s okay for us, if they come in after school, take shortcuts and use plugins, but during class it’s extremely valuable to know how things are done.

What would you say to another University about purchasing VideoToaster?

Most schools are struggling with the problems of quality control, and being able to afford enough equipment for the student body. Our strategy has always been a limited number of high-end workstations instead of a large number of low-end gear. Fortunately, we are a small school and we deal with the problem of making room for all the students by keeping the lab open around the clock, every day of the year. The advantage is that the school environment reflects the real world in all respects, including deadlines and odd hours, and that is really rewarding. There are, of course, some logistic problems, but it’s working pretty well, especially because VideoToaster has let us provide more high-end workstations than we could otherwise, and VideoToaster's power is the easiest to learn and harness of any high-end system. Conveniences such as per-user preferences and per-project undo stacks make life much easier in both education and production environments where equipment must be used for a number of projects by a number of people.

Even though your students work primarily in Toonz, they have found Aura to be complimentary to the process. Why?

Aside from traditional cell animation, represented by Toonz, students always tend to invent shortcuts. As soon we introduced Aura, a couple of students immediately started projects, tracing underlying video. Of course we had done this before, but never with such ease and perfection.

What do you think is VideoToaster’s greatest strength?

So far we only have scratched the surface of the VideoToaster's possibilities, but as I mentioned we place a high value on speed and simplicity. In the future, we certainly plan to try VideoToaster as a live production engine for our performances, which will add a whole new element to our tool chest.