What I’m Using Now

Tim Crean
Partner/flame artist, Suspect, New York, NY

Favorite gear: Discreet flame
List: Pricing varies based on system configurations.

Why I love it:
In the completely insane world that I work in, Discreet flame continues to be a lifesaver. Although Discreet has seen increasing competition from some lower-cost competitors such as After Effects and Shake, they still cannot touch flame when it comes to sitting in a room full of clients under a crazy deadline for a commercial.

"We built our company around our first flame system. When the demand exceeded what could be done on it working around the clock, we added another. The strengths of the flame compositing system are numerous, but the large and versatile toolset is what keeps it ahead of all of its competition. In order to replicate the hoops I jump through for editors and agency creatives, I would need to switch between several different programs constantly. First, I would have to render, then drop those results into another program, tweak, re-render the original element after a client change, take those results into an editing application, and so on. That spells Nightmare in a client-supervised session. With the sophisticated batch workflow in flame, I can see things downstream within the context of my shot; even see it update within my conform as I tweak. Although we have a full complement of other 2D and 3D applications in-house, the elements they produce eventually wind up in flame for final visual sweetening and finishing on every single job. Discreet has also been prudent in listening to the needs of its customer base, adding features and improving workflow every year. I know the tool I turn to in a crunch."