• Action Log Pro – Action Log is a film and television logging tool, designed for use on location or in a studio with up to 25 recording devices. At the touch of a button the logging system keeps track of all reel names and timecodes for each recorded piece of action.
• Evernote – I love Evernote for keeping Web research organized — and for their elephant logo. — Esther Robinson, director
• GoodReader GoodReader is terrific for script reading. You can widen the type to fit the page and then lock the scroll vertically. It’s by far the best way I’ve found to read screenplays. — Jason Kliot, producer
• pCAM Film+Digital Calculator – A Cinematography and Still Photography calculator for Photographers, Directors of Photography, Camera Operators, Camera Assistants, VFX Supervisors, Script Supervisors, Gaffers, Grips, Motion Picture Editors, Production Designers, Art Directors, Film and Photography Students.
• Qik I have found myself using Qik on set to share live videos from our shoots with Twitter followers, Facebook friends and Kickstarter backers. Here are some of those videos. — Arin Crumley, director
• Screenplay – Black Mana Studios’ Screenplay is the world’s first fully-functional mobile screenwriting application. It allows professionals and hobbyists alike to write complete movie and television screenplays directly on the iPhone or iPod Touch.
• Storyboard Composer – Cinemek Storyboard Composer for iPhone and iPod Touch is a mobile storyboard and pre-visualization composer designed for Directors, Directors of Photography, Producers, Writers, Animators, Art Directors, film students and anyone who wants to be able to visualize their story.

Head on over to the respective sites and check out their full lists for a cornucopia of applications that just might help you on your next project:

22 Filmmaking Apps for the iPad & iPhone – Filmmaker IQ
SOFT SELL – Filmmaker Magazine

As transmedia pioneer Lance Weiler recently wrote in the pages of Filmmaker, mobile devices “offer opportunities for filmmakers to reach audiences directly, with little to no intervention from middlemen. While the selling of a film on iTunes requires a filmmaker to go through one or maybe two aggregators, it is possible to go direct to the App Store as long as the mobile app receives approval from Apple.” But while Apple’s iOS requires approval, Google’s Android does not. Not only is Google’s app marketplace more open than Apple’s ecosystem, but Android has rapidly rising market share, and now Google is releasing App Inventor for Android, a new tool for creating applications with drag-and-drop simplicity — no coding (or approval) required.

If you’re not a programmer, have no fear: the New York Times notes that “[App Inventor] user testing has been done mainly in schools with groups that included sixth graders, high school girls, nursing students and university undergraduates who are not computer science majors.” In fact, Google’s launch video makes it clear just how user-friendly they’re intending App Inventor to be:

Of course, there’s a problem with allowing just anyone to create apps — the Android marketplace, already disorganized and difficult to navigate, could see a deluge of low-quality applications. It’s interesting to keep tabs on Google and Apple’s dichotomous approaches to their app stores — Google seems to want Android to be a free-for-all, whereas Apple dickishly insists on controlling and approving (or rejecting, as it were) everything. While I can definitely see potential drawbacks to Google’s approach, as long as there are effective filtering tools implemented in the marketplace — sort by popularity, for example, not to mention an actual marketplace on the web, instead of only on devices — App Inventor should help rather than hinder Google’s mobile platform.

Google “will be granting access to App Inventor for Android over the coming weeks” — right now, a simple email sign-up form is all that is offered. In the meantime, any ideas for apps for your next project? The possibilities are endless — use GPS sensors to discover where your audience is located, use polls to receive feedback on episodes or trailers, send text messages to users in a low-end alternate reality game. I say “low-end” because only time will tell how advanced App Inventor can get. But it should certainly be a good tool for getting one’s feet wet with mobile applications, which will undoubtedly play a larger and larger role going forward for any kind of independent creative.

Link: App Inventor for Android

Is your film playing at a film festival? Are you selling DVDs or T-shirts? What if you’re a photographer selling prints out of your home? Maybe you’re a street artist doing sketches of tourists, or an artist selling paintings or sculptures at a street fair. Hell, you could be mowing lawns for money. Now imagine you had a miniature cash register that takes credit cards, accept signatures, and send receipts automatically, all using the mobile device you’re already carrying in your pocket. For filmmakers and other independent creatives, Square is a big deal.

In any of the aforementioned situations, one of the main obstacles to getting paid is, by default, most of us only have the capability to accept cash on the run. This immediately cuts down on potential customers, because not everyone carries cash, so conversion rates are lowered by virtue of a potential customer saying “I don’t have the cash on me.” If we’re selling something that’s expensive, even less people carry a lot of cash, so then we’re forced to respond, “here’s my card, check out my web site.” That’s not a conversion. 90% of the time we’ve just lost a customer. But what if we could easily say, “I accept credit cards?”

Here’s how Square works. Square is a small gadget (pictured) that plugs into your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or Android device’s headphone jack. It allows a customer to swipe their credit card by reading the magnetic strip, transmits the credit card data to your phone using the device’s audio input (converting 1s and 0s into bursts of noise), and then authenticates the card using the device’s wireless or Wi-Fi signal. It allows customers to sign for their purchase using the device’s touchscreen, and then emails them a receipt and enters the transaction into your sales database.

The device itself is (currently) free. You can download the Square app today in Apple’s App store or the Android Market. Then you head to Squareup.com, give them your mailing address, and they’ll send you the card reader free (Square has reported on Twitter that they’re currently backordered on devices, so it might take a bit). Square charges a transaction fee of 2.75% per transaction, plus $0.15 for a credit card swipe, which is competitive, with, say, Paypal’s fee structure (and Paypal does a whole lot less for the money, if you ask me). There is no setup fee, transaction fee, monthly fee, etc etc. There are a lot more features worth checking out, but here’s a quick demo:

For more details, here’s Square founder Jack Dorsey (who also invented a little thing called Twitter) presenting Square at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference today:

Square isn’t the only kid on the block. PAYware mobile (by VeriFone) and Paypal on the iPhone are two current competitors, with many to follow. But Square’s simplicity and fee structure seem to be set up perfectly for independent creatives.

What do you think? Anyone going to sign up?

[via TechCrunch]

Link: PdaNet

If I were to bootstrap a non-film-related startup, I think it would be in the “mobile meeting” space, but I don’t have the infrastructure to support that kind of thing. Regardless, while this technology might be depressingly primitive today — and depressingly populated by what Casey terms “perverts” — where it’s headed tomorrow is the (multi)million-dollar question.

[via NewTeeVee]

UPDATE: It seems I was wrong, but not before others picked up on this idea. As it turns out, the Google Nexus One isn’t nearly as disruptive as a VOIP-driven, ad-supported device could be. I still maintain that the below is possible, and hopefully we’ll see it one day soon.

This isn’t specific to film, but considering mobile devices today are much more than just phones — they’re connected computers that serve as our digital, personal assistants — this has bearing on how all of us will be interacting with each other (and content) in the future. So I thought I’d throw around some unqualified and totally speculative speculation about What’s Next when it comes to mobile platforms.

Lots of talk today about Chrome OS, the forthcoming operating system from Google. It’s a browser- and cloud-based operating system, and it’s definitely on its way. But yesterday the buzz was all about the forthcoming/not coming Google Phone, which everyone seems to disagree on. TechCrunch claimed it exists, despite Google’s assertion that they wouldn’t release their own phone and cannibalize sales by hardware partners (Motorola, Samsung, et al). Indeed, it’s hard to believe Google would develop their own device when they already have a strong hand in developing said hardware, as they reportedly did with the Motorola Droid (of which I’m a current user). But then TechCrunch speculated that the Gphone may not be a traditional cellular phone but rather a mobile VoIP device that uses Google Voice (similar to Skype) to handle all calling. Now their assertion starts to make sense, as Google Voice is already a game-changing application on Google’s mobile OS, Android (which is different from Chrome). On my Droid, I’m already using Google Voice to send SMS messages for free, bypassing the carrier’s ridiculous $20/month messaging charge ($30/month for data is understandable, but text messages are just that — data — and infinitesimally small bits at that, making the additional fee downright offensive). In Android, you can select what to use Google Voice for — all calls, international calls, or not at all. Say you turn it on for “all calls.” Now when you place a call you’re not even using your carrier’s voice network.

See where this is going? Text messages are data. Calls can be treated as data. TechCrunch’s assertion that it’ll be a data-only device is convincing. But it seems unlikely Google would make their own hardware, right? They’re a web services company, and no matter how smart their engineers and programmers are, they’d have no reason to jump into the personal electronics game, where margins are razor-thin and companies are foundering by the dozens. As more and more smartphones hit the market, the hardware will become commodified; a high resolution screen, multitouch, and decent speaker will get the job done. Android’s touch keyboard in landscape mode is the same thing as the iPhone’s, and it works fine; the iPhone’s competitors are catching up to the iPhone and the iPhone itself isn’t innovating as much either (from a hardware standpoint, the 3GS was just a faster 3G).

Google wouldn’t jump into the hardware game to build a better device (they already work with manufacturers on that) or to try to create something to compete at the iPhone’s price point. The reason Google would jump into the hardware game is to manufacturer something cheaply to give away for free.

If Google’s basic business model is, “give people something they want, charge nothing, and make money via targeted advertising,” then the mobile phone is the final frontier. Instead of web advertising motivating users to click on a hyperlink, mobile advertising gets someone to walk into a physical store. If you’re walking down the street and you search for Pizza, the results you get could be paid for. When you Google something in your browser today, this is already the case; there are the algorithm results, and then there are the Sponsored Links. Each time you click on a link, the advertiser pays Google. In the case of mobile search, when you find a store using Google Maps and then physically walk into that store, the GPS in your phone can report that as an acquisition; the store would then pay Google for the added foot traffic.

I’m not entirely convinced that Google will “make” their own phone (I say “make” because even if they do, it’d likely just be an unbranded Toshiba/Samsung/LG device). With Chrome their plan is to allow hardware partners to produce their own variants of Google’s reference designs; if they’re not going to build their own netbook, why would they build their own phone? If they did release a phone themselves, they’d have to have an ulterior motive. They could build a simple, straightforward, free device, make a billion in order to get costs as low as possible, and release it worldwide, all in the name of collecting obscene amounts of user data along the way. But they’re going to do this anyway with Android and Chrome and all their web apps, without giving away a piece of loss-leading hardware.

More likely is the possibility of a Google Plan as a free, lower-bandwidth alternative to plans from Verizon and AT&T. People worry far too much about the price of the device itself, as if the difference between plunking down $100 and $200 at the store means anything when you’re contractually signing away $2,400 on the spot (a two year contract at $100/month). Based on that knowledge, carriers subsidize the price of a device as long as you sign their hefty contract; seen this way, many phones today are already “free.” Therefore, it’s not the the device that matters. It’s the service. And it’s going to be free.

The money Google brings in from mobile advertising (they just purchased mobile ad provider AdMob for $750 million) will more than cover any data charges they will subsidize a carrier (this was probably why they bid $4.6 billion on that 700mHz spectrum). You won’t have a monthly bill. You’ll just have a free device that does everything.

Of course, the phone will be reporting your whereabouts and activities to Google Mothership, and this raises all sorts of privacy concerns, etc. etc. But Google already scrapes data from much of our lives anyway, especially those of us who use Android or Gmail or Gmaps. What’s a little more personal info, when it comes down to it? Privacy ain’t free.