Apps for Filmmakers

Requires the iPhone 4 to use, but this is the quintessential app for filmmakers. It allows you to not only edit the footage right from your iPhone, but gives you access to pretty themes, lets you easily add music from your library, and even share your film directly from your iPhone 4. If your a filmmaker with the iPhone 4, you have no excuse not to download iMovie.

ReelDirector is the equivalent of an iMovie for the iOS. Many are aware an official iMovie for iPhone 4 app is arriving in the AppStore soon, but many will find they may want to edit video on their iPads, iPod touches or older iPhones and find iMovie limiting their usage of the app to just the iPhone 4.

OmniGraffle is used in many different circumstances. A great way to use OmniGraffle is to create storyboards on the iPad. The app itself is designed to be a visual outlining tool which makes it a great storyboarding app.

The iPad can actually save filmmakers a great deal of money through apps such as this. The hardware version of this app costs around $1,500 making buying an iPad a bargain. A very powerful clapperboard and shot log that may soon replace the hardware versions of this app.

Cinematographers will find this film calculator very helpful. The app will calculate depth of field, hyper-focal, splits, field of view, angle of view, focal length, exposure, running time to length, shooting to screen time, diopter, macro, time lapse, underwater distance, screen illumination, light coverage, mired shift, conversion siemens star and much more. A very powerful app that should save time and energy during production.

Filmmakers often have to make sure the content they film is legal. MRelease makes that process very simple. It comes ready to help the user get property, location, or crew release. These releases give permission to use recorded media, locations, objects, artwork, animals, locations, and crew members in recordings. It is a wonderful app to have handy when preparing for a film.

Viewfinders are used to measure and prepare for how much of the image will be used by different cameras. The app allows the user to select the different lens they have access to and easily pick which lens they want to use for filming. Once again the iPhone replaces the need of another piece of hardware in the filmmakers tool kit.

The location of the sun is vital when filming. Having the sun at a particular location will help continuity in the film and create the good lighting for the shot. The app works on iOS devices with compasses (iPads, 3GSs, and iPhone 4s.) A wonderful tool that can cut down on film prep time.

Animators will be pleased to find they can create an entire film on the iPad. Creating animations with this app then editing and posting with other apps. The app will allow the user to create very powerful and smooth animations that can then be exported off to YouTube and other mediums. The time where animations were difficult to do may be behind us with apps such as this one.

A film would not be complete without its score. The app will help a composer know how much music is needed for each scene. Simply enter the various timings and the composer can select different time signatures, tempos, and other settings to have all the data needed to begin scoring the film. A wonderful tool that should make composers' lives much easier.