Everyone carries a digital camera nowadays, and shooting a 'movie' clip is as easy as pulling a smartphone from your pocket and hitting 'record'. But how do you make your home 'productions' stand out when it's competing for attention against so many others on social networks and instant messaging. Here are some free, simple-to-use apps that will help you...
Post production
Ever wonder why your holiday clips, birthday recordings and college shoots don't look like polished professional flicks? Well, it's because they lack post-production work. Indeed, a little bit of editing and special effects can elevate your simple videos to cinematic masterpieces. Well, we're kidding about the cinematic masterpiece part, but adding special effects and filters will definitely get you more eyeballs
VivaVideo
VivaVideo lets you shoot split screen clips, trim and merge videos, apply filters, transitions, animated stickers and titles, music and even live dubbing.
You can choose from over 60 live effects that can be downloaded for free - and all of these embellishments can be previewed immediately so you can see what your finished clip will look like before applying the effect. Once you're done, you can save your oeuvre to your phone's gallery, e-mail it to friends, or share it directly on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and more.
The free version lets you work on clips of up to five minutes, but a paid upgrade allows for unlimited video length and without the watermark.
VideoShow
As an alternative, consider VideoShow - another app that lets you download themes, sound effects and fonts for free. It allows you to add cool animated frames, subtitles and stickers, incorporate photos, add transitions, draw over a scene, and more.
Its "Tool Box" contains additional functions that let you trim a video, convert a video to an MP3 file and compress a clip to lower video resolutions for easy transfer over instant messengers.
Reverse Movie FX
Reverse is a simple app that can take a video and play it in reverse, often to comedic effect. You can record a new video or import a pre-recorded one, select the start and end points of the clip, add a music track to liven things up and "start reversing."
You also get the option to remove the background audio altogether and stitch the original video to the reverse one. Go ahead, have fun: shoot a video of you 'undrinking' a glass of milk, or of your friend jumping out of a swimming pool and onto the diving board.
Lapse It
Have you seen those scenes in movies where the day transitions into night within a few fast-moving frames? Well, you can do that too with Lapse It. The app shoots photos continuously - every two seconds, by default - over an extended period of time. These snap shots, when played back at a high speed, appear as though time is moving really fast. You can set the rate at which the frames are played, the focus mode, exposure, colour effects, white balance and choose between three video formats (H.264, MP4 and MOV). The free version of Lapse It lets you record at 480p.
If you want HD recordings, you can buy the pro version. This version ends with a watermark, which can be edited out with a video editor tool like VideoShow. Tip: Place your phone on a fixed base or stand, when shooting, for best results.
Trim your videos
If your smartphone allows for it, you'll be tempted to shoot in Full HD. Now, hi-def videos - which result in large file sizes - are best suited for viewing on your large TV screens, but are not easy to transfer over instant messengers and to upload on social networks. So if you want to shrink video resolutions, or convert to a compressed file format, you might want to rely on.
Video Trimmer Guru
Video Trimmer Guru keeps it simple with three basic set tings that will help you cut a video's file size down to make it shareable over WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc. It lets you select a video from your phone's gallery or shoot a new one. After that, VTG lets you trim the clip, reduce the resolution (from 720p to 640p, 480p or 320p) and even choose the quality (high, medium, low, custom).
Video Dieter 2
This app lets you change the aspect ratio and video resolution to create a lighter version for easy sharing on the web.VD2 also includes a time lapse and slow-motion feature, which gets activated when you share the app with three friends.
Gif Me!
If you want to reduce the size of a video file before you send it over instant messaging or uploading it to your Facebook, try Gif Me! The app lets you capture up to 14s of footage, add colour filters, text and stickers. The final output can them be saved as a GIF file.
Collaborate
Say a group of friends are at a wedding, individually using their phones to shoot videos of the ceremonies, the guests, the dancing, and other festivities. With collaborative apps, everybody can contribute their videos to create a compilation of the occasion. You can also use these video collaboration tools at music concerts, on treks, and holidays.
Vyclone
Vyclone is a video app that's better suited for recordings at festivals, concerts and theme parks. It lets each individual shoot three-minute clips - and then, automatically uploads those to its servers. Next, it matches all the videos shot at the same location - and at the same time - to sync and edit it all to create a movie with multiple angles.
Users can download the raw footage to tweak their own version using basic editing options within the app. And of course, like all social networks, you have the option to keep your videos private - or even share them via WhatsApp, Bluetooth, e-mail, etc.
Shotclip
Shotclip features templated storylines - like wedding, day at the beach, baby's first birthday, etc - that your group and you can use to create a masterpiece production. Each group member's contribution appears in the app. Shotclip renders the final video on its servers and e-mails a link from where you can download it.
If you would rather not use the templates, Shotclip also lets you create your own custom collaborations.
Head to "Join the Crowd" and you will also be able to participate in ongoing public projects and contribute your own videos. For this, you will need to sign in with your Facebook ID.
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