The fine folks over at stillmotion have been providing the film community with awesome educational resources for the past couple of years; everything from tutorials on how to light an interview to how to get better handheld footage. One of their coolest resources, however, is SMAPP, the "stillmotion App." It combines all of stillmotion's killer tutorials with a set of story-driven interactive tools, which use input based on how you want your shot to look and feel in order to provide technical suggestions on how to achieve it. Now, a new version of SMAPP is available that adds new functionality to many of their old tools as well as some extremely helpful new ones.
Updated Shot List Tool
A solid shot list can be one of the most important organizational tools that we have as filmmakers. Unfortunately, our shot lists oftentimes end up disregarded for one reason or another, and efficiency goes out the window. The updated Shot List Tool in SMAPP looks to change all of that and become the ultimate pocket shot list for you and your team. Here are the new features:
Sharing: You can now share your shot list with anyone on your team, and since it syncs to your Dropbox as well, everyone can see as changes are made to the list.
Sharing: You can now share your shot list with anyone on your team, and since it syncs to your - Photos: Attach photos and screen grabs to your list to illustrate what you’re envisioning for every single shot!
- Alarms: Trying to get the perfect shot right at sunset? Set an alarm so you don’t miss it! This is an awesome feature — on so many occasions we’ve had the perfect shot in mind, but we just forget to get it at the right time.
- Syncing: The Shot List now syncs to the Lens Selection Tool and the (all new) Movement Tool. For example, if you’re not sure which lens to use for a certain shot, you can access the Lens Selection Tool from the shot list and your lens choice will then appear on the list.
Packing List Tool
One of the new interactive tools in SMAPP is the Packing List Tool. With an endeavor as equipment-intensive as filmmaking, always having the right gear at the right time can easily become a burden. With the new Packing List Tool, you can make detailed lists and assign certain pieces of gear to specific bags/cases or certain individuals. Additionally, because it's also completely share-able via Dropbox, everyone on your team can stay up to date with what gear has been and still needs to be packed, thus helping ensure that you never arrive on location only to find out that you didn't bring an essential piece of gear. Even though many of us aren't traveling for work, this tool can be extremely helpful for day shoots as well. Essentially any time that you've got to bring gear into the field, SMAPP's packing list will be there to help make sure that you stay as organized as possible.
There are a couple of other really cool new features and tools included in the new version of SMAPP, so be sure to head on over to stillmotion's blog and learn about all of them and to download the new version to try for yourself.
What do you guys think? Do these new features and tools have you excited about SMAPP? Let us know in the comments.
