4 great ways to edit video on your smart phone
Want
to improve the high-quality photos and videos you've taken on your
phone? Chances are your smart phone has video-editing tools built right
in that can help you craft a polished video that's easily shared.
Apple
took the first step with the iOS version of iMovie, a $5 download from
the App Store. iPhone users can create movie masterpieces in minutes,
simply by plopping content into themed, customizable templates and
adding fancy transitions, special effects, and soundtracks. Now other
phone makers are serving up their own video-editing apps, free and
preinstalled on the phone.
These
apps let you arrange and rearrange video clips and still photos, which
you can make more compelling via the "Ken Burns effect"—a slow zoom in
or pan to simulate movement. Of course, none of the apps has the number
of effects or tools found in a full desktop program such as Adobe
Premiere Elements. But with a little practice, you can easily make your
smart-phone videos much more enjoyable for the people with whom you
share.
Apple iPhone.
iMovie, the gold standard of video-editing apps, is the only app in
this roundup that lets you use the phone's camera and audio recorder
while you're in the app, so you can add narration or take a new picture
or video while editing your work of art. The app provides two ways to
create pro-quality presentations. You can add your own photos and videos
to ready-made presentations called Trailers, which contain stock
photos, videos, music, credits, and other elements. There are 12 themes,
ranging from Bollywood to Swashbuckler. But I found it easier to make
videos from scratch, by dropping my content into a timeline, then
choosing from eight treatments that reflect a wide range of moods, from
newsy to sentimental.
Which smart phone is right for you? Check our cell phone buying guide and Ratings.
BlackBerry Z10.
Story Maker, a brand-new app on BlackBerry's brand-new operating
system, lacks the prefab templates of other video apps but does provide a
nice array of color effects, ranging from black and white to a
saturated color palette to enhance your creations. More impressive are
Story Maker's intuitive controls for fine-tuning videos. It's easy to
select, insert, and rearrange your content on the apps timeline, and you
can also trim and make other tweaks to an element by pressing your
finger on it, which summons the editing menu. And you can easily add or
change titles and music.
HTC One VX.
Movie Editor is the easiest-to-use video-editing app in this group, but
that's because it offers only three themes: Formal, Birthday, and
Travel. It lets you rearrange photos and video clips, but I couldn't
find any editing tools or customization options.
Video
editing should be radically better on the upcoming HTC One's Video
Highlights app, which has six templates and several intriguing features
never before seen on a phone: These include the ability to automatically
aggregate photos and videos according to time and location where they
were taken, as well as a new photographic element called Zoe, a 3-second
video clip made up of 19 individual still photographs. I'll have more
on Video Highlights in my review of the HTC One in the coming weeks.
LG Optimus G.
Video Wiz, like iMovie, is an app that can work wonders with a tossed
salad of video clips and photos (see our sample video, below). There are
no Trailer options as in iMovie, and you can't add narration or shoot
new content while editing. But the timeline editing options are just as
intuitive, and the app comes with seven treatments, called Styles, with
dynamic transitions and other effects. Styles range from the
baroque-laced Sentimental (think wedding video) to the aptly named Pump
it Up (think smart-phone commercial). Bummer: Saving the final edit of
90-second video can take several, interminably long minutes.
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