smartfilming

Exploring the possibilities of video production with smartphones

Month: January 2021

#39 Should you buy a cheap Android phone? 10 things to consider! — 24. January 2021

#39 Should you buy a cheap Android phone? 10 things to consider!

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One of the big reasons why Android has such an overwhelming dominance as a mobile operating system on a global scale (around 75% of smartphones world wide run Android) is that you basically have a seamless price range from the very bottom to the very top – no matter your budget, there’s an Android phone that will fit it. This is generally a very good thing since it allows everyone on this planet to participate in mobile communication, not just if you have deep pockets. But as many of us would agree, smartphones are not pure communication devices anymore, you can also use them to actively create content. In this respect, Android phones are bringing the power of storytelling to the people and could therefore be regarded as an invaluable asset in democratizing this mighty tool. But if you CAN get a (very) cheap Android phone, SHOULD you get one?

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#38 How to anonymize persons or objects in videos on a smartphone – new app makes things a lot easier! — 16. January 2021

#38 How to anonymize persons or objects in videos on a smartphone – new app makes things a lot easier!

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There are times when – for reasons of privacy or even a person’s physical safety – you want to make certain parts of a frame in a video unrecognizable so not to give away someone’s identity or the place where you shot the video. While it’s fairly easy to achieve something like that for a photograph, it’s a lot more challenging for video because of two reasons: 1) You might have a person moving around within a shot or a moving camera which constantly alters the location of the subject within the frame. 2) If the person talks, he or she might also be identifiable just by his/her voice. So are there any apps that help you to anonymize persons or objects in videos when working on a smartphone?

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#37 Best video editors / video editing apps for Android (Update 2022/2023) — 10. January 2021

#37 Best video editors / video editing apps for Android (Update 2022/2023)

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Ever since I started this blog, I wanted to write an article about my favorite video editing apps on Android but I could never decide on how to go about it, whether to write a separate in-depth article on each of them, a really long one on all of them or a more condensed one without too much detail or workflow explanations, more of an overview. So I recently figured there’s been enough pondering on this subject and I should just start writing something. The very basic common ground for all these mobile video editing apps mentioned here is that they allow you to combine multiple video clips into a timeline and arrange them in a desired order. Some might question the validity of editing video on such a relatively small screen as that of a smartphone (even though screen sizes have increased drastically over the last years). While it’s true that there definitely are limitations and I probably wouldn’t consider editing a feature-length movie that way, there’s also an undeniable fascination about the fact that it’s actually doable and can also be a lot of fun. I would even dare to say that it’s a charming throwback to the days before digital non-linear editing when the process of cutting and splicing actual film strips had a very tactile nature to it. But let’s get started…

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#36(0) The Insta360 One X2 – fun & frustration — 5. January 2021

#36(0) The Insta360 One X2 – fun & frustration

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A couple of years ago, 360° (video) cameras burst onto the scene and seemed to be all the new rage for a while. The initial excitement faded relatively quickly however when producers realized that this kind of video didn’t really resonate as much as they thought it would with the public – at least in the form of immersive VR (Virtual Reality) content for which you need extra hardware, hardware that most didn’t bother to get or didn’t get hooked on. From a creator’s side, 360 video also involved some extra and – dare I say – fairly tedious workflow steps to deliver the final product (I have one word for you: stitching). That’s not to say that this extraordinary form of video doesn’t have value or vanished into total obscurity – it just didn’t become a mainstream trend. 

Among the companies that heavily invested in 360 cameras was Shenzen-based Insta360. They offered a wide variety of different devices: Some standalone, some that were meant to be physically connected to smartphones. I actually got the Insta360 Air for Android devices and while it was not a bad product at all and fun for a short while, the process of connecting it to the USB port of the phone when using it but then taking it off again when putting the phone back in your pocket or using it for other things quickly sucked out the motivation to keep using it.

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