AppAdvice Daily: App Synergy - Video Making
by Robin Rhys
April 13, 2012
Today we're going to show you how to make an awesome, stylized home video or podcast that you'll want to share with the world - or maybe just your friends and family. Either way you're going to want to show it off.
One of our writers started a new column this week called app synergy, so we wanted to take it a step further and show you guys how to use app synergy to make your videos pop.
Since we didn't get to do our App-It-Tight video this week, we thought we'd incorporate a little workout into the video we made for the show. We shot it all with an iPhone 4S, and the theme is doing circuit exercises in two minute intervals, using nothing more than your iPhone timer. We shot stills of each exercise, as well as video, and then put it all together using the following apps:
FX Photo Studio: $0.99
FX Photo Studio is an amazing photo enhancing app, that gives you a ton for the 99 cent price tag. We can't emphasize how easy it is to use! Open the app, then take a photo, or select one from your Camera Roll, hit the FX tab to select, and add an effect. We wanted to give the photos a vintage feel, with a spash of extra color, and FX Photo Studio was more than able to accommodate us. After adding the effect, we cropped out some of the unwanted space, and bam, it was ready to go into the video timeline. For the rest of the photos we just repeated the process.
Game Your Video: $1.99
The next step was decking out the video. We couldn't be more happy that our sponsor this week was Game Your Video, since it was a perfect fit for this project. First of all, the app is amazing. Not many apps out there let you add live effects to your video while you're taking it - but this app does! Since I recorded the piece solo, the video was recorded by itself without effects, but it was more than easy to add on effects after the fact. Some users complained that the controls were not intuitive, however, we didn't agree. Easily swipe from live video to gaming mode. There you can select a video that you took in the app, or from your camera roll. Select a flavor, which there are lots of, and it's game on! Since we wanted the video to match the photos we already edited using FX Photo Studio, we selected Old Look, clicked on Nostalgia, and selected Blockbuster. This gave the videos a similar look as the previously edited photos. After that, we were able to layer other effects on top of it. We wanted each clip to start out slow, but then once we got into the exercise we hit 'Fast' to make it seem like the energy was being amped up. Since we wanted to add photo elements to the finished video, we decided to put all of the pieces together using iMovie.
iMovie: $4.99
After tricking out the photos, and pimping out the video, we were ready to put everything together. Using iMovie we layered all the video and photo clips into the timeline, selected a theme that fit, which added some workout appropriate music, and finally the piece came together. You can watch the video to see the finished product.
In just a few minutes - using FX Photo Studio, Game Your Video, and iMovie - we were able to create a really cool, stylized video. Now that's what we call app synergy! If you guys have any ideas for app synergy, please contact Lenny, the man behind the new app synergy column, at leonard@appadvice.com.