» Posts Tagged ‘android’
New Lomography Kickstarter Makes Your Smartphone a Mobile Film Scanner
Though I understand where these things come from, calling something like Lomography “the analog Instagram” is like calling Kodak’s new Super 8 stock “the chemical MiniDV,” or even better, “the new digital from back before digital” — for the sake of modern analog (dear lord I just said that) we’re getting our chicken-and-egg orders mixed up. That said, we’ve seen some pretty interesting blends of the old and the new… and then back to the old again. There was The Impossible Project’s Impossible Instant Lab, which made Polaroids of cell phone stills — which we also called “the Real Instagram,” though again, I understand why. Thanks to (both a hobby and) a company called Lomography, the opposite chicken-egg process is possible — with some help, your smartphone is now also a digital scanner of film negatives. Read: Instant scanning, insta… sharing. More »
Yesterday, Google announced that YouTube was coming to your real tube in a big new way, by way of your Android device and WiFi. Today, RCA has reported something similar, but the opposite — sort of — perhaps looking to get in on today’s lucrative tablet market. Interestingly, in this case, the company has announced an Android tablet that will be capable of wirelessly receiving television channels, for free — but not via WiFi internet access. The device will tap the airwaves in much the same way the ‘bunny ears’ of your parents’ old cable-less TV set did back in the ’50s, but allow you to do so while traveling, up to 100 miles per hour. More »
YouTube is doing a lot to make itself a media service platform that rivals the traditional television you’re used to. Original channels are getting a major push, creators are being given some big perks as incentive, and shooting/uploading elegance now trumps native video-sharing options on rival mobile devices. There’s still plenty of things that need to be ironed out before all of us may seriously consider YouTube as a hub for our own content — but Google is still looking toward the future and forging ahead. The ability to watch YouTube on your home TV set is already proliferating, but now, Google has announced an app update that allows you to control browsing and viewing directly with your Android phone or tablet. More »
I wasn’t really expecting to have to refer to the theoretical ‘Instagram of Video’ for another while — major choices for mobile users are already in place and ‘in the running’ for such a title, and it could be a while before everyone in the discussion unanimously declares one app the victor (if ever). The Verge (seemingly in a nod to comments) acknowledged YouTube as the elephant in the room for these apps, because even on iOS where the YouTube app is read-only (well, watch-only — no uploads), the service is the megalith for easily-socialized video. A complete YouTube experience is already native on Android (again, YouTube is Google is Android), perhaps to the chagrin of recent Android-joiner Viddy. A new development may totally shift the dynamics of this interplay, however: Google just yesterday released YouTube Capture for iOS. More »
Where is the supposed ‘Instagram of Video?’ Is it even possible for a motion-based media/social service to be as lightweight, sharable, and just plain easy as Instagram makes stills? The jury is still out, the verdict on which of the contenders will stick — if any at all — is still to be determined. We covered a bit on some of the startups stepping into the ring already, and since then, some other relevant material has surfaced. In one corner, heavyweight Viddy (one of the favorite bets) has just released an Android version of its service for many smartphones, while in the other, small independent startup Lumify wants to make “filmmaking for everyone” and attempts to answer “Why our mobile videos suck.” More »
Shoot a Film on Your iPhone, Control Canon DSLRs with an Android Tablet Monitor Rig
There’s no doubt that modern mobile technology has the capacity to streamline or benefit many aspects of filmmaking. Whether it’s the micro-video art emerging in social media, script supervision capabilities, lighting-fast previsualization softwares, or the surprisingly high-resolution video some phones and tablets can shoot (given what they are), there’s something to be said for their place in the industry. For goodness sake, modern smartphones are better at giving directions than my GPS navigator and shoot higher quality video than my first camcorder. With all that said, though, how far can things like the Apple iPhone or an Android tablet be taken down-and-dirty in the trenches of shooting? More »
There are many great ways to connect to other filmmakers today. We have sites like Production Hub, Mandy.com, and even Craigslist that are fantastic for crewing up and getting on crews. However, when I’m playing “closer to the chest”, I find myself sourcing locally nowadays on Facebook. I like to see who knows who of closer friends, and I prefer direct connections to general callouts. This merger of production resources and social networking is the theme behind Stage 32, a 70,000+ member network for film, television, and theatre creatives. More »
Thanks to Hollywood Camera Work’s new app Shot Designer, you can now design and block camera coverage of your scene almost as fast as you can think it — even on your mobile device. An intuitive interface allows precise control for plotting (and animating) all the essential aspects of shooting your scene in a classic top-down diagram style. A limited (single-scene-at-a-time) release is available for free, and the $20 Pro version has some key perks too. Read on for the intro video and a more detailed list of Shot Designer’s features. More »
This is a guest post by Whitney Adams.
There are literally thousands of apps on the iOS and Android platforms, and plenty of them are actually useful for filmmakers. Having some of these apps is like having an entire production office or studio in your pocket. App developers have created tools for all different skill levels, so whether you are just starting your career or have been at it for a while, there is an app for you. Here are 5 that just might make your filmmaking experience more productive: More »
Aurasma: A Great Self-Promotion Tool and a Way to Get Your Film into Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality has been slowly making its way into our lives, mostly in the form of demo videos, games, and Google’s forthcoming Glass project. But Aurasma is a cool little app that puts the tools to create AR content into the hands of everyone, and has implications that could put an interesting twist in filmmaking for the web: More »
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about The Kick camera light and what it’s features could mean for the future of studio lighting, one of which was the possibility of controlling the attributes of multiple lights from a smart phone . While this is a feature that hasn’t yet come to pass for studio lights, it is starting to appear in practicals: More »
Vimeo has always been a huge supporter of artists, musicians, filmmakers – anyone in the arts. They’ve fostered a community that lets artists be who they want to be, and post their work without restrictions, something that’s a bit harder to find on YouTube. Today they updated their iOS app, and like most of their website, it’s still free. The big news, however, is that it finally works natively on those millions of iPads you creatives have been carrying around. More »
When I originally wrote, “Google TV is what independent filmmakers have been waiting for,” in retrospect I forgot the “is” at the beginning of the sentence and the question mark at the end. So far the answer to that question has been, admittedly and unfortunately, a resounding “no” — so much so that, despite being sent a Google TV by Google (in part because of writing that article), I still haven’t set it up. But when it comes to independent film distribution, the TV is the final frontier, and whether or not Google TV version 1 made an impact, version 2 is currently rolling out this week and looks to improve things significantly. Oh, and rumors are flying that Apple is apparently getting into the TV game for real (the current Apple TV is nothing more than a hobby). More »
If Google and Apple were politicians — and if this blog were actually a legitimate news site — I’d have to give each of them equal time. So, since I mentioned the improved video and photo capabilities of the iPhone 4S, I would be remiss if I did not also mention Google’s demonstration of Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” last week, which, to contextualize things, will make most mobile phones higher resolution and more feature-laden for shooting video video than the first digital video camera I used a dozen years ago (which retailed for $3,500 at the time). And if you think this doesn’t relate to filmmaking at all, it turns out DP Seamus McGarvey used an iPhone to shoot parts of The Avengers — actually this has since been debunked, but the Android headline still stands: More »
At the same MAX conference where they announced Creative Cloud, Adobe also demonstrated not one but six new touch apps for tablet interfaces. These $9.99 programs, along with a $60/year Carousel photo storage/sharing service, include “anytime, anywhere” apps that allow for image editing, sketching, “ideation,” mood boards, website/mobile prototyping, and presenting finished work. The apps — which do not include a video editing solution (yet), will be available on Android starting in November. As for iOS and their sometimes bristly relationship with Apple, Adobe “expects to make an announcement regarding iOS availability in early 2012.” Here are video demos of each touch app in action: More »
While Netflix has been available on iOS since last year, it’s been conspicuously absent on the arguably most popular smartphone OS, Android. By finally releasing an Android application late last week, Netflix is moving closer to their goal of being on every platform. But their Android release is a perfect example of the fragmentation issues plaguing Android, as their app is currently only available on five specific phones: More »
Back in November I criticized Google’s Android operating system for lacking an iTunes-esque media marketplace. Android’s openness seemed a good match for independent content creators, except it lacked a streamlined way to sell media content. Yesterday, at Google I/O, the Big G finally announced an Android Movies Marketplace, as well as an Amazon Cloud Player
Apple has released iOS 4.2, which comes with a slew of improvements for iOS devices. However, iOS isn’t the only kid on the block, with reports that Samsung’s Android-powered iPad competitor shipped 600,000 units in the first month. Amid reports that Android phones are outselling iPhones (possibly 2-to-1), and the news that Apple and Google are locked into competition over who will premiere “tap to buy” first (which will allow us to use our smartphones as virtual credit cards), I thought I’d delve into NoFilmSchool’s analytics to see what percentage of visitors are running iOS versus Android. Both mobile OSes will be a growing distribution platform for movies, but which OS will help independent filmmakers? More »
Soon, the iPad won’t be the only tablet on the block. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab was first out of the gate, but a bevy of other Android-powered tablets have also been announced. And while this first wave of Android tabs looks a bit hacked-together (Google has referred to their current rev of Android as “not optimized for tablets“), one thing’s for sure: we’re going to see a lot of iPad knockoffs in the months to come. Whether or not you already have an iPad, what features would you like to see added to the iPad’s basic feature set? For my own filmmaking and creative purposes, there are two things I’d want to see in a tablet: More »
Lifehacker is currently running a great series called “Lifehacker Packs,” wherein they round up all their favorite applications for the iOS, Android, and Mac platforms (no Windows love yet). Many of these applications are free, and each post is a great resource for anyone looking to add some creative/productive/fun tools to their computerized lives. The compilations are aimed at anyone, not just filmmakers (the full links are at the bottom of this post), but I’ve grabbed a number of relevant apps (and Lifehacker blurbs) for independent creatives: More »
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