Mini Movies
Posted by Chris on October 10, 2007
I mentioned in a previous post that the average cell phone these days can do SO much more than most people ever discover. This revelation struck me when I saw someone demonstrating a video clip they made from footage taken on their phone’s camera. What this person didn’t realise was that some phones can not only shoot the footage, but can also edit it as well. I won’t repeat the list of stuff that can be done – you can go read the other post if you really want to know more – but I was surprised at just how simple it is to throw a short clip together.
To put the theory to the test, I went to watch my kids play tennis today and took some footage with my phone. (Well, mainly of my daughter… my son kept telling me to go away. Fathers can be so embarrasing!) I shot 6 or 7 clips, then used the phone’s editing software, called VideoDJ, to trim each one, add titles and transitions, place the clips in order, and render a final movie. I could have added music in the background too, but I thought was going overboard a little. Total time taken to edit from start to finish was about 6 minutes – in fact I did it while standing in a shop waiting for a hamburger to be made for my lunch!
Of course, the quality is a bit ordinary, as this particular phone only shoots at 176×144 pixels at 10 fps, but still… I uploaded the finished video to YouTube, not so much as a video masterpiece but more as a proof of concept. For what it’s worth, here it is…
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/iiyduw-azQA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
