If you’ve ever wondered why our products are so good, I’m going to let you in on our big secret for supreme software awesomeness:

We use our own products.

That’s it. That’s the secret. We create products we love and use every day. And I’m not just talking about Harry Frank, Stu Maschwitz, and myself.

Virtually everyone at Red Giant is creative in their own way, but almost everyone at Red Giant has a real interest in creating art – whether it’s video, photography, or some other medium. Even our QA team and our accountant have a passion for film-making, visual FX, photography or motion design.

Case in point: Joe Kadera – QA Engineer. Below is a tongue-in-cheek, short film he worked on with a friend, as a continuation of a project they started in high school. You can see a ton of work and love went into this enjoyable film-noir short (although – warning: there is a bunch of violence in there):

iPod/iPad-Friendly Version on Vimeo.

About his job and his passion, Joe says:

“Ultimately, I want to be doing something like what I did on Joe Saturday in the movies, that is to say, everything. But I also have more fun working in a small team like I can do with my friends now than I would on a big project. Special effects in general are some of the most interesting things for me to work on.

At red giant, I get to work a lot with the same software I used when I made Joe Saturday, and work with when I do my own movie work, but I get to make sure that it is working as it should for everyone else. Most of my day consists of playing with sliders and writing up bug reports, but I’m pretty good about getting in the zone and it doesn’t bother me as it might some people. Occasionally I create some pretty cool effects while I’m testing that I am able to put into use in my own projects at home.”

You can get some cool behind the scenes footage and other info on Joe Saturday at the official website.

Tags: Company, Joe Kadera, Joe Saturday, Red Giant, Team