Hello Mick and Welcome to the Forum (I see this is your first post):

I'm a firm believe that "less is usually more." I also believe there are times when "more is more." That's when Mayhem is handy.

I guess you could say I work at the lower end of the video food chain. I'm on a scuba diving boat six month a year. I shoot my guests Monday through Friday, editing at night, and then show my souvenir DVD on Friday night with the hope they will buy it.

I strive to get well composed, clean underwater shots of my divers seeing and doing interesting things so they can show their family and friends. For my topside segment, I'll use Mayhem if a guest has a funny piece of gear, gesture, or whatever. I limit the use to one instance of Mayhem in a weekly DVD. The funny piece of gear might be a hideous wetsuit, silly hood, humorous dance, etc. My guests love it, everyone laughs, and there are no hurt feelings.

Yeah sure I could dink around with Vegas and create the same or different effects myself. For that matter I could reproduce many of the NewBlue effects myself. But in my case, I truly have no time to spare. I need to render my day's footage each night or I'll fall behind.

So I believe there is a time and place for Mayhem, as there is for most (but not all) plug-ins.

I love using Vegas and it sounsd like you do too. As you probably already know, VASST also distributes other tools and training materials for Vegas. I have found those items to be excellent and I've learned a lot from them.

Regards,

Kimberly

Edit: Apparently the name "Mick" is perceived as a Bad Word. So henceforth you will be called Mikc : )

I don't think your opinion is worth 2 cents.

are you keen on producing tacky looking videos ottor?

Mikc, exactly how smart do you think it is to walk into a room and introduce yourself in this manner and then in your second post ever, insult another forum member. You're not off to a good start.

Hey Kim,

I don't think there is such a thing as low end of the video chain. But my point is that Vegas is suppose to be a Pro program, and caters to a professional market.
The user base are talented enough to recognise that FCP is not the only editing program in the world. It's an amazing piece of software, created by a crew of people that listen to their users (instead of alienating them like Apple has with Final Cut Pro X). I'm proud to say I've been using vegas since version 4, and I get excited like a kid everytime an additional upgrade comes out and stiffs the competition. Or when the competition tries to completely rebuild their program to act like Vegas.
My little 2 cent outburst was more a shock reaction that Sony Creative Software would promote a product, that has a very unwatchable demo vid.
No offence meant to VASST, as I said they make other products that are very cool. But if there is a place for Mayhem, it's somewhere next to star wipe.

Hi John,

I understand their are some hurt feelings due to my opinion.
But that is exactly what it is, an opinion. I wouldn't really call that an insult, more of a jab at someone that first took a swipe at me. Everyone in a forum has a right to be heard, and saying that someone's opinion is not worth while is just as/if not more insulting than asking someone if they like making tacky videos.

I'm not here to create a fuss, or to make people upset. I purely wanted to know why VASST went to the effort of making Mayhem, when its looks awful.
Clearly some people have found a use for it, which is great. My opinion of a product doesn't mean I am a know it all, or that a disrespect people that use it. I just find it very pointless, and I am very surprised that people use it.

Also, this is not my second post ever, nor did I just introduce myself. Perhaps if I have an opinion about something from now on, I'll keep it to myself so I don't upset the forum.

Hey Mikc (note that Mick is a Bad Word),

Maybe you contributed under another name, or maybe the Forum doesn't have enough space to hold posts going back to 4.0. But if you're been using Vegas since 4.0, I bet you have some insights to share.

I'm not trying to be a kiss-a$$, but the thing I like best about the Forum is that people share information about what works and what doesn't work. I learn from that and it helps me make my videos better. So welcome regardless how you feel about Mayhem!

Mik,

I have to say, your lack of manners seems equal to your apparent lack of vision, or imagination, or both. I've seen MANY users produce suitable videos with Mayhem, but it may be that all you do is talking heads, or other various low/no energy/activity videos and can't see a use/purpose for it. I've seen it used on extreme sports videos and it works very well. I've watched it used to energize otherwise boring footage, but most importantly, I've seen it used to make things appealing to the teens and 20 somethings (a major market that's hard to entertain at times). I'm certainly curious to hear your age as you have a very opinionated personality and don't seem to mind sharing it ( just for the sake of curiosity). I've seen plenty of folks use this to accomplish a specific task of energizing their content during lulls in high energy videos. You may not care for it, but I know plenty that do, so maybe you should think twice before you publicly declare your opinion as with a seemingly very limited perspective, and then insult the taste of the people who disagree with you.

Thanks Kimberly,
I wouldn't say I have too much to share except outlandish opinions, and a technical understanding of the program.
I'll be around from time to time, stay safe on the water!

Alright Frigid I'll bite,
But I really have no purpose to prove or big note myself to you, so I'll try not to.
Nor am I going to take the path of pathetic assumption fuelled insults toward someone I know nothing about. To settle your curiosity, I'm 31, and I have been in the games since I was 8 years old. I started editing VHS tape to tape, through a vision mixer, and through the decades found myself using Vegas and steering away from Premiere, although we use AE for all our finishing and visual effects. We now use it in our business which often caters to music channels and a younger audience.
I will say that "energising" a video to target a teen demographic is not done through randomly assigned effects, and flashy transitions. It takes an understanding of the craft of producing/editing and an understanding of the audience. I might be the minority in this case of my opinion, but you won't convince me that Mayhem can replace a well cut video that incorporates ramped speed, pauses and jump cuts in time with the music, custom motion graphic elements, flashy multiple layer overlays, etc and most importantly the ability to tell a story in the allowed time.
I guess I would love to see more people use skills rather than quick fixes that get them there faster, but have them arriving without production value.I agree I do have an opinionated personality, and to be honest I thought I'd have a lot more people agreeing with me. I just find it strange that a NLE package that stays on top of the professional market with high end features like incorporating R3D file support believes that supporting/promoting a product like Mayhem is worthwhile.
I'd like to see them focus on issues such as importing .veg files into programs like After Effects and Fusion instead, (this is something that is very frustrating and would really bridge some major gaps.)
I guess in a round about way I am proud that Sony Vegas is a program that anyone can use, from a very basic level like yourself (I couldn't help myself), through to a very professional level.
Ultimately it is very cool that Vegas has a bunch of followers that are extremely passionate, and at times heated.
Frigid, I'd love to see some of your work if your willing to come out from behind your "handle", I promise I'm not as much of a wanker as I come across on here.

I have seen it used effectively in sky-diving sequences and while that launch sequence looked good I wasn't interested in using Mayhem because of the basic reasons stated by Mick -- I prefer to consciously create my montages. But there is something to be said for accidental assemblages, in that accidents can turn out rather well. I remember a film editor saying that his office chair (by rolling across film) cut better than he did. If one has a tight deadline and Mayhem helps someone meet that, who am I to criticise?
But perhaps that isn't the issue here. How we express ourselves, rather than the technical matter, is the actual issue. One person's meat, and all that.

Hello Mick, (EDIT - I can't believe that your name is censored - it's not even Dick [short form of Richard] )
So, you have plenty of experience and knowledge, which COULD be very useful here. If you were more POSITIVE about your talents and yourself, I'm sure you could have contributed heaps of advice and help over the years to users who ask how to do this or that, but instead it seems you've been hanging quietly till you have something to criticise, and that's not good for you or us. We all have things we want to have a go at from time to time, but if that's all we do ....

Apologies if you've been doing positive things for ages under a different name.

It's easy to spot the true amateurs. They forgo doing anything correctly while shooting, preferring instead to 'fix it' all in post. And on top of that, they throw as many transitions, filters and overdone music into the mix to hopefully distract the viewer from the underlying poorly shot video.

Micky welcome and your opinion is also welcome

MAYHEM It’s a tool like a spade you can either kill a rat or plant a tree with the same spade. Personally I kill more rats with my spade because it’s more fun, now and then I get to plant a tree or 2 to feel good about myself.

Something to consider, your application perception of Mayhem is very singular and flat.
Mayhem is a tool that gives you a added manipulation factor over media =, so what is media? well it could be a lighting overlay over a video clip
For example with a fashion shot you could have a ramp model with a subtle light media overlay and have the light cut to a rhythm and do this very quickly.

Welcome once again and by the way ….nice spade you got there.

Everything in moderation, I personally think you can take anything and use too much of it. And, if you're trying to polish a turd.... in the end it's still a turd, whether or not if you're using MAYHEM or BCC7.

Personally, I wish someone would make a titler that doesn't make you feel dumber than a rock.

On the other side of the coin NewBlue has just released Video Essentials V which has some nice features....

Michael,
I agree with what you're saying.
I think one of the problems with Vegas is it makes things much easier. The problem then is that you can easily fall into the trap of thinking that holding an easy to use tool in your hand should make it easier to become a craftsman. In my experience the opposite can be the case.

Still we shouldn't blame Mayhem on the good people at VASST. They saw a market for the tool and ultimately the market will decide if it's good or not or the people who've bought its clients will.

Bob.

I have to admit, I had never heard of Mayhem, but this post made me go look at it, completely expecting it to be, for lack of a better phrase, hideous.

It's not.

Almost ALL the work I do is teen high school sports video, so this plug in is aimed RIGHT at the demographic I do work for. While I'm not fond of the demo video, I can certainly see why they did it the way they did.

In a few seconds, they created a preset that had multiple effects as a demo of the *versatility* of the plug in. You see these effects in plenty of montages for X Games, Xtreem Sports... and trust me, in covering 200+ cheer events a year, I've seen MUCH MUCH worse.

I can see similarities to the AE plug in Twitch and other effects that can be done in AE.

Something that keeps me in Vegas, rather than going into AE, is a good thing.

It's probably a safe guess to assume that Mayhem was created mainly to meet a very specific need: same-day videos for skydiving and other extreme sports.

I expect that Mayhem and VASST's Vegas Production Assistant are used at skydive airports all around the country (or all around the world) by people who aren't really full-time video editors, but who are creating a video product for their customers. The guy jumps, and as soon as the camera guy touches down he delivers a memory card to the computer guy. The computer guy uploads the footage, runs some boiler-plate programs, enters in some information, and fires up Vegas. The customer gets a DVD that he is probably absolutely thrilled with. Everybody wins.

I can't imagine that Mayhem is used on the bulk of the video -- probably just sections here and there, serving as a transition from one activity to the next. Same as any extreme sports program you'd see on TV.

I don't need to buy Mayhem to cause 'Mahem' with my videos. LOL! I do a great job naturally!!!

I recently used Mayhem to produce a high energy video showcasing changes in media over the past 60 years. Starts slowly with B&W tv then accelerating through the 60's & 70's with computing etc & continuing with frenetic energy to today. It is to be shown at a national food industry conf & it saved me over 6 hrs of editing & was a perfect tool for what was an unusual and 'one off ' project for me. I've got an idea for those who don't see value in tools like Mayhem- don't use them & be happy! There's a saying: 'Horses for courses''
Duncan

Duncan, yes. Sounds like a perfect match of the appropriate tool for the job. I've done something similar to accentuate some body Popping dancing. Looks great.

I'm guessing that users need to hear/read where one could use such tools.

The other thing Mayhem does is to demonstrate just WHERE the use of the Vegas dev kit for CREATIVE thinking programmers can take Vegas. And here that would be John Rofrano. He has the extra bit of creativity to "see" what is possible and THEN have the engineer ability to implement those ideas. We, as Vegas Users are truly fortunate to have John working with us.

MAYHEM, it brings Vegas order to creating chaos! - Thanks John.

Grazie