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Gone are the days when you could buy a plug-in collection for a fixed price and then use it for years. Most providers have switched to subscription models, which can be paid for either monthly or annually. This can be advantageous for users who only need a specific effect or collection for a short period of time and remember to cancel their subscription in good time. In most cases, however, users pay many times what the collection would have cost (in the past) as a one-off purchase. And at least once a year, you are painfully reminded of this when another £250 is debited from your credit card for an FX set that you haven’t used in ages.
The situation is similar with stock footage from relevant databases: in the past, if you bought a collection in the truest sense of the word, you could use it for numerous productions and essentially forever (somewhere in our cupboard, we still have the Artbeats collections “American Cities” and “African Animals” in wonderful NTSC resolution in MotionJPEG format). Nowadays, you either buy expensive credits (as with Adobe Stock) or subscribe (e.g., Envato) to get the material you need.
The manufacturer Production Crate offers a combination of both in its suite: a plug-in collection that includes an extensive database of visuals, music, and sound effects, available by subscription, of course. In this review, we take a closer look at whether the model is worth its USD 300 annual price.
Scope and management
The entire (paid) suite consists of just over 40 plug-ins, around a quarter of which are freely available, i.e. do not require a subscription (we have taken a brief look at the most interesting effects below). According to the manufacturer, the scope of the assets, i.e. the stock material, exceeds 10,000 elements, ranging from simple explosions to animated Valentine’s Day hearts to confused zombies.
The database is divided into VFX, motion graphics, music, sound effects, and 3D models, including Blender assets, with Pro Suite customers entitled to 50 downloads per day. Plug-ins and assets are managed via a central app called ProductionCrate Portal. Depending on their preferred software and workflow, users can install plug-ins for After Effects and Premiere, tools for Blender, or extensions for direct access to assets from the host software. The idea is not new (even Envato now offers a plug-in for Premiere), but it is quite helpful when you need an atmosphere, a background or a nuclear explosion quickly.
Pro plug-ins
The set of both free and subscription-based plug-ins is designed for Premiere Pro and After Effects, with most of the tools working in both host applications. Only plug-ins that don’t really make sense in Premiere (such as unmulting layers or working in 3D space) are only available in After Effects. Otherwise, it must be said that the ProductionCrate Suite offers few surprises.
Most of the effects will be familiar to users, as they have been integral parts of other plug-in collections for decades, such as Glow, Old Film Effect, and HyperGlitch. Nevertheless, the ProductionCrate effects are very cleanly programmed (i.e. few crashes or problems when loading) and also proved to be easy to use – once you’ve experimented a bit and halfway understood what the countless controls are for.
Let’s start with the obvious: turn new video into old film. Or old video. Or old television. Production Crate provides a handful of plug-ins for different applications. The “Retro Film” effect transforms the video into 8, 16 or 35mm film with all the trimmings: faded or blurred colours (or even black and white), dust, hairs, scratches and lots of wild camera shake. The settings are relatively clear and understandable, yet comprehensive, so that the user will hardly miss any options for converting to old film.
Particularly interesting are the presets, where the user can choose among a 1960s home-video style, a Tarantino-esque grindhouse effect, or an old Italian western. All presets are lovingly designed and even include aspect ratios tailored to the look, which you don’t often find. The individual settings range from blur/sharpen to saturation, framing and lens errors to hair length and scratch depth. So basically everything you need for a quick old film effect. The preview and rendering are also pleasantly fast and of sufficiently good quality.
This is followed by the VHS effect, which does exactly what you’d expect from the name: it converts digital video into old VHS footage. Both the presets and the settings are a lot more limited than with Retro Film, but they’re more than enough to achieve a cool 80s look (what else do you really need to adjust with VHS?). In fact, you don’t need much more than the “default” preset; if that’s not enough destruction for you, you can switch to “Found Footage” or “Corrupted” to generate more magnetic interference, distorted colours or jumping line skips. Other custom options include colour softness, grain, jitter and block formation, as well as the number and colour of line skips.
Speaking of line skipping (a factor that used to exist in post-production, but which should no longer be a burden to you, dear Gen Z): a very interesting effect can be found in the CRT Factory (CRT stands for Cathode Ray Tube, or tube monitor for short). The effect transforms digital video into an old television or video monitor, with all the trimmings: curvature, pixels, interlacing, discolouration, optical deviations and strange glows. Here, too, the presets are extensive and lovingly programmed, covering numerous looks, including arcade monitors, billboards, monitors from different decades, LEDs, and plasma TVs. Especially in combination with the VHS effect, but also as a standalone tool, for example, for screen captures or the animation of screen content, impressive results can be achieved here.
And, before we forget, there is, of course, also a proper film grade effect. Unlike other plug-in collections, in which realistic film material from Fuji, Kodak or other (now bankrupt) manufacturers is meticulously reproduced, “film grade” at Production Crate is more of an interesting gimmick. Presets such as Polaroid, Miami, Pop or Retro are available, which already indicates that these are not serious stock simulations. Nevertheless, it’s fun to click through the presets, which here and there are even sufficient to achieve a look that is worth seeing and, in any case, creative. Numerous options are available for customising the image, from colouring, saturation and grain to light rays and, of course, a vignette. Strangely enough, when applied to a video element, the effect switches the comp size to 1,440 x 1,080, so you should proceed with caution here. Whether this is intentional or not is something only the manufacturer knows.
If you take a closer look at the ProductionCrate Suite, you can’t overlook Easy Glow. Although Easy Glow is certainly not the only filter on the market that makes bright areas of an image glow (hardly any plug-in collection comes without a glow effect), the result is extremely impressive and stands out from the competition thanks to its many detailed presets.
The presets range from sunset to retro to science fiction films and always look professional, neither overdone nor understated. The individual settings are not overly extensive, but they still serve their purpose. Of course, you can adjust the intensity of the effect, the colour scheme, as well as shifts and optional light streaks. All in all, Easy Glow is one of the best “make me glow” filters we’ve seen so far — and we’ve seen a lot.
One last filter from the Pro series deserves a more detailed introduction: Hyper Glitch. As the name suggests, this plug-in generates video glitches — from “very subtle” to “completely unrecognisable”. The effect is programmed in a very interesting way and offers a variety of looks, while the individual settings remain simple and easy to understand. Once you have decided on a preset, you can, of course, adjust the strength of the effect to your liking, as well as its intensity, size, colours, jittering, halftones, and speed. Ultimately, there is hardly a setting that you cannot freely design and, of course, animate. Once again, the combination of Hyper Glitch and the CRT monitor makes particular sense for achieving a realistic effect of transmission errors and an old screen.
Surprisingly, the ProductionCreate Suite (in the Pro version) includes numerous other filters that are not really documented or described anywhere (at least not on the website). Installing the collection is like opening a lucky dip: you find an incredible amount of stuff you didn’t expect, and which you probably won’t have much use for until you actually need it. For example, there is an aurora effect that generates northern lights from any image (something you’ll probably need once or twice in your life, if at all).
Or the Fractal filter, which creates 3D fractals like those from a spaceship in films from the 90s. The bokeh effects used to create soft lighting environments are also interesting. Or the Glass filter, which makes text and graphics appear as if they were made of glass, and can actually be used as a virtual window pane with corresponding glass edges. The list goes on, but the space in this report (and our readers’ attention span) is limited.
Free plug-ins
As mentioned above, Production Crate does not necessarily require a subscription for effects and assets, but also offers a handful of useful and interesting plug-ins (and elements) that can be downloaded and used free of charge from the website. We won’t go into more detail here, but we recommend trying them out on your own computer.
One of the free effects that deserves a special mention is certainly “Black Hole”, which is either useful for very specific applications or for promoting the nerdiness of individual DIGITAL PRODUCTION employees (we reported: https://digitalproduction.com/2026/01/15/diy-gravity-make-your-own-black-hole-in-afer-effects/).
The Chromatic Aberration effect is also very useful. It refracts the wavelengths of different light colours to simulate faulty (or very cheap) lenses, which, especially in combination with other effects, produces amazing results. The ASCII filter (also known as the Matrix effect) is also always welcome, as it transforms video images into a shower of characters.
One last free filter that should not go unmentioned here is Long Shadow, which casts a shadow of any length based on an alpha channel of text or graphics. This shadow is not comparable to the realism of a drop shadow or the shadow of a virtual light source in After Effects, but it can be very helpful in designing interesting logos and graphic animations. And, as mentioned, all of the filters mentioned in this section are available free of charge.
VFX footage
We have already mentioned that Production Crate also offers many thousands of assets in its subscription. The focus is less on real stock footage, as is the case with Envato and its ilk, and more on all kinds of elements for designing more or less elaborate special effects. In the “SciFi” submenu alone, there are hundreds of assets for space battles, cyberpunk environments or a remake of Minority Report. Most of the VFX graphics are rendered films with optional alpha (choose from HD to 4K, in ProRes or MP4), but you can also find real images with alpha or green screen (usually when it comes to people who are either shooting wildly or staggering around as zombies).
As we mentioned, the number of downloads is limited to 50 per day (in the Pro version), but this is certainly sufficient if you know in advance what you actually want to design. The VFX section alone is divided into 16 categories (explosions, fire, smoke, blood, flying objects, and so on), which are in turn sorted into subcategories (e.g. explosions on land, in the air, and nuclear), so users should be able to find what they are looking for quite quickly.
Within the VFX section, things can also be a little less brutal if, for example, you are looking for weather phenomena such as snow or rain, or animals such as birds or fish. The motion graphics section is quite interesting, but somewhat less extensive. Here you will find all kinds of animated backgrounds, lens flares, animated icons and buttons from popular portals, cute emojis, and lots of transitions, textures, and quite elaborately designed captions.
Users of 3D programmes such as Blender will be delighted with the numerous 3D objects, most of which are once again very martial in nature (lots of war toys, apocalypse and sci-fi), but there are also things from normal, everyday life, such as cars (that aren’t standing around as bombed-out wrecks), trees, sports equipment and delicious doughnuts with pink frosting.
SFX footage
In addition to the numerous visual assets, the Production Crate subscription also includes sounds in the form of sound effects and royalty-free music (editor’s note: “royalty-free” does not necessarily mean “free for commercial use” — if in doubt, check the terms of use with the provider). The selection of music tracks is not overly extensive, but it offers a pretty good start for use as a layout, at least. The music tracks are divided into categories such as rock, disco, epic and action, so you should be able to find at least a small selection of music for every application.
In terms of quality, the tracks are in the middle range, meaning they meet the standard of a professional sound database, but do not particularly stand out. In addition to numerous music tracks, Production Crate offers more than 5,000 sound effects that can be used at will within the subscription. These are also divided into categories for ambient sound, animals, accidents, organic sounds (such as breaking bones) and various vehicles. However, it is clear that the martial approach prevails here too, i.e. there are significantly more explosions and muzzle flashes than delicate birdsong. Nevertheless, the range is extensive and of high quality.
As a special gimmick, Production Crate offers a plug-in that allows access to the sound effects directly from Premiere. Using a separate window in the editing programme, users can browse the sound library, listen to samples, and, if they find what they are looking for, download the element with a single click and insert it into the timeline at the position of the playhead. The plug-in is clever enough not to overwrite existing elements in the sequence but instead to create a new audio track.
Conclusion
Anyone interested in compositions, effects and motion design within After Effects (or sometimes even Adobe Premiere) should definitely try out the numerous free plug-ins from Production Crate. Whether a subscription is worthwhile depends, of course, very much on the individual working environment and production requirements.
Production Crate leans heavily into sci-fi, fantasy and action, which is why a large part of the material on offer and some plug-ins are not particularly suitable for, say, “normal” productions (documentaries, reports, cooking shows, weather reports, Sunday sermons). We would therefore recommend the Production Crate subscription to users from the aforementioned fictional areas. Nevertheless, it is worth taking a closer look at what is on offer for the majority of users. In fact, there is also a “beginner subscription” available for USD 9 per month (USD 100 per year), which includes the plug-ins but does not allow access to most of the footage database. So if you only want to use the effects, the starter pack is a good choice.
Info box
ProductionCrate Suite Skills (plug-ins only) $100/year
ProductionCrate Suite Pro (Plug-ins and 50 downloads/day) $299/year
ProductionCrate Suite Enterprise (plug-ins and 100 downloads/day) on request
Check current pricing and options here.
Host application: Adobe After Effects/ Adobe Premiere Pro
Further information: https://www.productioncrate.com/
