Cinnafilm's Dark Energy plugin for After Effects is arguably one of the best noise reduction and grain emulation tools on the market today. Most notably, Shane Hurlbut turned to Dark Energy in order to make the Canon 5D Mark II shine for Act of Valor, and high-end production companies around the world rely on Dark Energy for everything from noise reduction for green screen keying to film grain emulation. However, at this point in time, Dark Energy is only available as an AE plugin (and only on the PC). The folks over at Cinnafilm have just started a Kickstarter campaign to port Dark Energy over to the OFX platform so that it can be used in programs like DaVinci Resolve, Nuke, and Avid. Check out their campaign video below:
Personally, I think that a noise reduction plugin as powerful and versatile as Dark Energy could add additional value to programs like Avid and Resolve Lite. Considering that one of the main limitations of the lite version of Resolve is that it lacks the noise reduction features (and the high-resolution capabilities) of its big brother, adding the Dark Energy plugin to Resolve Lite could potentially make for one of the most powerful noise reduction/ color correction combinations at a fraction of the cost of the full version of Resolve.
What's equally interesting about this campaign is that Cinnafilm is using the Kickstarter platform as a market research tool in order to gauge interest in the OFX version of Dark Energy. While the company could likely invest in the R&D themselves, they're doing both themselves and their customers a favor by taking it to Kickstarter. They get to know if there's a viable market for the product, and the contributors get the plugin at a significantly reduced price.
Additionally, if you've been interested in the After Effects version of the Dark Energy plugin, but couldn't stomach the $400 price point, you can now get the plugin for $222 by donating to the campaign. So head on over to Kickstarter to learn more about the potential for an OFX version of Dark Energy.
What do you guys think? Could the OFX Dark Energy plugin potentially make Resolve Lite even more of a powerhouse than it already is? How do you feel about Cinnafilm using Kickstarter as a free platform to gauge interest? Let us know in the comments!
