FXGuide caught up with Andreas Wacker of Method Studios in Santa Monica.
Famous for its award winning commercials and music clips for directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and artists such as Madonna and many more. Method’s visual effects artists, and much of their signature styles on-screen, is supported by proprietary code developed by Method Studios team of engineers, headed by Andreas. Method Software provides such things as speedchange sof
FXG: How did Method software start and when?
AW: Method started in 1998. We knew from the get-go how important it would be to write custom software internally to give us an advantage in the marketplace. Seeing here at method how this software changed the way we worked, it was a very logical step to make certain tools available.
FXG: But you give over 10 Sparks (Discreet plugin tools) away free, no strings attached?
AW: If modules are free or cost some money is really secondary. We did not start MethodSoftware to make money. Remember it was 1998 when we started it, we would have started a dot com, if we wanted to make money. Providing some software for free was just the most logical solution to
situations where the effort to solve a problem was trivial. And we believe in open software, and use it throughout the company. We like to contribute in the area where our expertise is.
FXG: How do decide which tools to focus your efforts on ?
AW: Here at Method we are doing visual effects. And we use tools that most others use as well. These tools are great, but they have shortcomings in certain situations. Be it for specific job requests, be it that some tools are not thought of by others to be widely needed enough, or just that nobody simply thought of it. If there are solutions for a certain problem available then we’ll purchase them, but if there are no available solutions around, then we will weigh up developing our own tools. It often depends on the amount of effort to solve something compared to the impact of the problem. Some of the biggest problems we have not yet solved, since the efforts on the software side simply out weigh the benefit. Other problems are so minor, that they are a mere convenience issue, in which case we just do it.
FXG: Do you want Method Software to grow into an independent software supplier?
AW: Traditionally, there have been the two ways of software development for visual effects: There are companies that make a living from exactly doing this. We are clients of most of these companies, and their work is great. Their products are worth their money, otherwise we would not have bought them. And then there are in-house developers. Like us they have the benefit to know very directly what the market needs. There have been many attempts to evolve from this kind of development into the ones mentioned before. And it usually did not work. We knew that we would be with MethodSoftware right in the middle between these two types. And we felt and feel good about it. We never wanted to have our own NAB booth, or print some T-Shirts with our logo.
FXG: Why did Method cut its prices this week, for example, C24 your 3:2 pulldown removal is now only $100? Do you hope others will follow?
AW: We lowered our prices. Up to 2/3 in some cases. Method Software always tried to have as little overhead as possible, in order to be successful under all circumstances. The biggest unknown when we started was the support factor. Being on the receiving end of this most of time, we know, all to well that support is utterly important. So we priced our products so that we could support our clients on a level that we would expect from a software vendor and then a little bit beyond that. We were pleasantly surprised that our tools are less support intensive then we thought they might be. With the new prices we took this into account. Support can now be ordered separately from the products. Distribution, licensing and documentation are internet based. So our overhead here is really low, specially since we run our servers, connectivity and databases for www.MethodStudios.com anyway. That’s why we could lower the prices so
significantly.
The market has changed in the last years.
And there are more people doing visual effects now. Up to certain point we will go along these developments. But we are very comfortable sharing our tools and working with the wider visual effects community, and continuing to allow Methods artists to explore complex visual solutions.