You
don’t have to be rich to make a cinematic showpiece – you just need an Android
phone.
At a
glance
Skill:
Straightforward.
Time
needed: 30 mins.
Suitable
for: Android smartphones.
Everyone
and their aunt seems to be making movies at the
moment, and it’s possible your aunt knows how to do a better job than you. But
fear not, creating a great movie is easy you don’t even need access to
expensive video equipment.
Using a
combination of Android phone – many of which sport hi - def
video capabilities and your PC, you can make great movies without spending a
penny, and you don’t need to be gifted in the directing department either.
Software
options
In an ideal
world, you’d be able to shoot, edit and upload your movies in one fell swoop
but until an iMovie clone is ported to the platform, Google Play doesn’t have
any great apps available to do this yet. Thankfully, you can use your PC with
the movie editing software available, such as Pinnacle Video Spin (which is
what we use here). Windows Live Movie Maker or even the YouTube Video Editor
Follow this
guide and you’re guaranteed to get better results the next time you want to
create a movie. Your aunt (or even Spielberg) had better look out.
Create
your movie masterpiece
1. Go high definition
To get the
best image quality from your Android camera, always choose the highest number
of pixels you can in the case of the newer Android phones: 720p or 1080p Full
HD recording is available. If you want to create something smaller and easier
to upload to the internet, go into the “Settings” menu and adjust the
resolution to a lower quality.
2. Prepare the scene
This is
where the movie starts. What are you planning to shoot? Prepare your camera for
the scene by adjusting the settings. Tweak to suit your ambient surroundings –
whether day or night by tapping “Exposure” and “Image properties” and adjusting
the sliders until the scene looks natural. If you’re trying to be arty, change
to greyscale.
3. Set up your movie
If you’re
planning to shoot a particular scene for a length of time, don’t just carry the
camera in your hand – the shake resulting from your tight grip will make the
movie look terrible and unprofessional. Either find a suitably flat surface to
rest the camera on or, ideally, get an inexpensive tripod to mount it one. Your
viewers will thank you.
4. Positioning the shots
When you’re
ready to shoot the movie, don’t be tempted to place your phone in a convenient
position and leave it there for the duration – capture the moment from a
multitude of angles for the best effect. You’ll appreciate it when you’re
splicing your movie together in the editing room afterwards, as it will look
much more professional.
5. Splice and Dice
Now that
you have all your movie scenes saved to your Android smartphone, you can begin
the all - important editing process. The easy-to-use Vid Trim app available
direct from the Market on your phone – enables you to quickly trim your scenes
to suit the final cut. Just grab and move the slider either side of the scene
to focus in on a particular part that you’d like to capture and keep. Now, you
just have to save the new scene, and then it’s time to bring your movie
together.
6. Download your clips
This part
is really easy simply connect your Android smartphone to your computer using a
USB cable, and then copy your movies over to your hard drive. If nothing
appears to be happening automatically, you need to drag the notifications bar
on the home screen of your phone down and tap on “Turn on USB storage”. Once
done, this will enable you to access your phone from the computer, just like a
normal storage device, and then copy over your files to where you want them.
7. Import them instead
An easier
way is too add video clips directly to VideoSpin,
which you can get from www.bit.ly/wG6iok.
It’s free, so just sign up and download it. Under the “Edit” tab, click the down
facing arrow and select the files from your phone. A preview screen shows you which clip you’ve selected. Select your chosen clips and
click “Import”.
8. Create a timeline
Now start
editing – drag and drop clips to the timeline below. If you want to adjust
their length or change where they start and finish, use the slider. To fade in
and out of movies, click on “Transitions” and drag and drop a transition to
where you want it. You can add a custom title by right clicking the Title track
and selecting “Title editor”.
9. Make it sound good
No movie
would be complete without some music to give it atmosphere, so you can add your
own music tracks, too. Click on the musical icon, browse to where your music is
locates, and double click the track you want to add. As with video clips, you
can make a track shorter by grabbing the slider and dragging it.
10. Create your movie
Once you’re
happy with the way your movie looks, you can go ahead and create the video
file. Click the “Make movie” tab and choose the file type and compression that
best suits you, then click “Create file”. Alternatively, click on the web
option and upload it to YouTube if you want to share your work with the world.
Forget fancy cameras – you just need a phone
for making great movies.
[Do
this]
Get a
professional look for less
While it
doesn’t take much to make a great-looking movie on your phone, with a little
help you can make your movie really stand out from the usual YouTube clips. The
most obvious improvement you can make is to the quality of the sound. You can
either connect a decent microphone using a 3.5 mm adapter, or if you don’t have
access to a standalone mic, try a mini microphone
such as the i-Microphone
from www.expansys.com, which neatly plugs
into the headphone jack. Sure, this won’t give you professional quality sound,
but it’ll be a definite improvement over the standard mic.
The next
must-have accessory has to be a tripod for perfectly smooth movies, but how on
earth do you mount an Android phone? There are plenty of inexpensive smartphone
holders available on Amazon, which enable you to mount your phone on to a
standard tripod. If you want something a little more compact, it can be
combined with a Joby Gorilla Pod, which can be
adjusted to fit any number of indoor or outdoor environments.
The Mobislyder lets
you take dramatic panning shots with your phone
For the
ultimate in professional looks, check out the Mobislyder.
It might look like a skateboard, but the Mobislyder
enables you to take smooth panning shots, the type you’d normally see in
dramatic movie scenes. It can be used flat or vertically, propped against a
wall. At $150 it’s not cheap, but it’s a great way of adding a little dynamism
and it’ll make those home movies really memorable.
