The Birth of an Idea
The origins of the Toolkit concept
by David Hebel
It's been about a year and a half since our last issue of Digital Juice Magazine and I'm really excited that we've brought it back. It seems very fitting that Editor's Toolkit Pro should be the focus of this magazine since the original Editor's Toolkit was the cover and feature article of the very first issue of Digital Juice Magazine. Interestingly, the idea for Editor's Toolkit came about on a four day cross country road trip back from NAB in 2001.
NAB ROADTRIP
At that time, airplane seats and I didn't exactly get along. In 2001, I was quite a bit bigger than I am today (I'm presently 6'4", 260 lbs so I'm not exactly small even now). Digital Juice President, Viv Beason, graciously agreed to drive with me across the country (literally) from Florida to Nevada. At that time NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) was a big event for us. Jump Backs was our main product line and we had just released our first eight volumes at the show. On the way back we started throwing out different ideas as to what kind of products we could come out with the following year. One idea was to do a package of lower thirds. Another idea was to create a package of overlays. Maybe we could do some wipes or get into music.We had lots of ideas but nothing really came together as "the idea."
LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE
Sometimes ideas come to you out of the blue and the moment it comes, you just know it will work. It has happened to me only a few times in my life. The night the name "Digital Juice" popped into my head after years of trying to come up with a company name was one such time. I knew the moment I wrote it down, I was done searching. That's how Editor's Toolkit, the name and the idea for the product, happened.
After three days of brainstorming and trying to decide between a Lower Thirds product, Animated Overlays series, and about a dozen other ideas, it finally hit us. What if we combined as many ideas as we could into a single package? A huge collection of matching animations, lower thirds, and overlays. A kind of toolkit for editors... an Editor's Toolkit. Within moments the idea for the product was formed, the name picked, and the ideas for all the "tools" solidified.
ONE YEAR LATER
Of course, coming up with an idea and actually creating a product are two totally different things. We struggled to overcome many obstacles and problems including the need to develop the first version of the Juicer and switching from CDs to DVDs at a time when no one had DVD drives in their computers. But exactly one year later, and after another cross country road trip, we were back at NAB 2002 ready to launch Editor's Toolkit.
Six years and 70,000 units later, we finally stopped selling the original ten Editor's Toolkit volumes and are now launching the next generation of "graphic tools" with our brand new Editor's Toolkit Pro series. Although there is a greater variety of animations in the new Toolkits (all of which include both SD and HD), the fundamental idea and vision we had for the original Toolkit is still the same as when it was first conceived somewhere in the middle of Texas (or maybe it was Mississippi) on that cross country trip long ago. I hope you enjoy the Magazine and the new Toolkits!
David Hebel, Founder/CEO, Digial Juice, Inc.
