Curt Fetter is the President and Founder of Dvee Media Productions, based in Waltham, Massachusetts. Dvee Media creates video presentations for corporations, non-profit organizations, and small businesses, with an extensive client list that includes National Geographic, New Balance Athletic Footwear, Gillette, Keurig, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, among many others. Curt founded Dvee Media in 2000 with a Media 100 i/xs system at the center of his workflow. He continues to use this system for recording and editing audio narration, while relying on multiple Media 100 Suite systems for HD video editing. We recently caught up with Curt to discuss his history and experience with Media 100...

What type of work do you tend to specialize in?
Anything I can get my hands on! As a creative producer, I tend to get bored after repetitively working with the same subject matter over and over. I have been blessed that Media 100 gives me the speed and flexibility to accommodate the video editing workflow and technical mindset demanded by any given project.

For example, it takes a very different creative mindset to work on a dialog-driven short film versus a flashy corporate opening or a step-by-step product training video. With Media 100, irrespective of the type of project, making the video entails the same structural process. So, I don’t really have to "specialize" - other than saying I do "corporate" work, which is more of a market segment than a project type.

How have you found Media 100 in use?
I began working for a Boston video production company in 1998 as a full-time video editor using a Media 100 system. Before this position, I had a lot of experience with Pro Tools audio editing and MIDI sequencing along with some video editing experience with Adobe Premiere. I remember I was hired on a Friday. They gave me the Media 100 manual to review over the weekend and they told me I was going to start an edit project on Monday! 

Knowing the time it took to become proficient with Premiere, I thought I was going to have a hard time jumping into a full project that quickly. I was amazed how easy and intuitive Media 100 was to learn. With only the weekend to look over the manual and a less than 10 minute walk-through on Monday morning, I was on my own and completed a sizable corporate project - from digitizing through editing to a master!

Over the course of my career, I have had to work on and become proficient on many other editing systems, including Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, and Apple Final Cut Pro. 
Every time I have to work with another system, I cringe because even the simplest edit seems tedious and time-consuming as compared to Media 100. With Media 100, video editing is creative and quick. I immediately throw material on the timeline, make heads and tails cuts, add a color effect, add an audio EQ, adjust an audio spike, and add a motion effect - all in real-time! I can do all of these edits in less time than it just took to describe them. Then, adding motion graphics is just as easy. In my view, the speed of editing in Media 100 is ideal for live events, which demand immediate turnaround, or for client-supervised editing sessions, where integrating feedback in real-time is a huge asset.

The speed of the Media 100 interface has consistently allowed me to complete all of my projects ahead of schedule and under budget. As a result, Dvee Media has been able to work on more projects simultaneously, and the company has been much more profitable. Thanks to Media 100, we have enjoyed 100% client satisfaction, and we always impress with our quick turnaround and under-budget final costs.

Are there any features that you find particularly useful?
There are many Media 100 features that I love, but I would mention these in particular:

• Multi-layering of Boris RED titles and graphics on the Media 100 timeline. With RED, I rarely leave Media 100 for animating text or photographs.
• The ability to replace media in the preferences at any given moment
• The ability to quickly add transitions between clips in the Edit Suite window or by simply holding down the shift key and dragging over the cut right in the timeline.
• Color and motion effects are a breeze.

I would also highlight Media 100's audio capabilities, which are excellent. Media 100 gives video editors all the essentials to edit audio on a daily basis, and the uncluttered interface makes the tools very easy-to-use. I love that I can place level and stereo field pan nodes with a simple click. Even the audio effects (Reverb and EQ) are great. They sound excellent and give editors fast tools that can be used on every video editing project.

How do you see Media 100 fitting with your future plans?
As long as I am working with video, and as long as Media 100 is available, it will be part of my future. As an artist, I am considering expanding my skills, and offering more visual effects services - perhaps by learning Autodesk Smoke or a similar application. I would envision doing my “higher end” specialized effects in Smoke and bringing all of the footage into a Media 100 system to build the storyline of my edit.

In summary, I am a die-hard Media 100 user and advocate. For me, if I were not able to continue using Media 100, I would probably no longer be a video editor - because I hate working on other systems and would find no joy in the edit process. I need my Media 100!