The iPhone’s native video recorder built into the camera app? Nothing to write home about.
It’s serviceable, yes, as best evidenced by the cool art-horror project “Paranmanjang” shot entirely on an iPhone 4 by “Old Boy” director Park Chan-wook late last year. And I’m sure if you had a well-deserved $130,000 budget you’d be able to make your iPhone shots look pretty spooky, too.
But for iPhone directors with a more realistic budget, you might want to check out the new FiLMiC Pro, which launched a week ago. For all the features it comes with, it’s a steal at just $3 and exponentially improves your iPhone’s video capabilities by giving users pro-level control.
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For starters you’ll be able to shoot using dual reticles for spot exposure and focusing (like in the photo above), with the option to toggle a torch light on and off. Frame rates can be set from 1 fps (stop motion, folks?) all the way up to the iPhone’s max of 30 fps with multiple resolutions up to 1280 x 720 pixels. You’ll also have the option to turn on a bunch of useful overlays, like a framing guide for your aspect ratios, or an audio meter that let’s you visualize what your mic’s picking up.
Also cool: optional slates and vintage-looking color bars that come in handy for desktop editors trying to find their cut.
But one of FiLMiC Pro’s most useful features is the ability to upload directly to a number of services: You have your usual array like YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook, but also Dropbox, direct FTP and even Tumblr.
Fair warning, though: If you’re shooting at higher resolutions or bit rates (quality ranges from an 8 Mbps “Economy Rate” up to a high-quality 14 Mbps option) you’ll have to wait awhile and you’ll most definitely want to do it over Wi-Fi.
Full specs after the jump, and you can download it here.
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Features of FiLMiC Pro Include:
– Screen Resolution – Choose from 1280×720, 640×480 or 480×360
– Frame Rates – Choose from 26 different frame rates (inc. 24P and 25P)
– Focus and Exposure Locks – customize lighting and focus independently
– White Balance – balance the neutral colors on the iPhone camera by easily identifying pure white in your lighting settings
– Audio Metering – Monitor audio to ensure the best possible sound quality for your video
– UI Orientation Flip – Shoot in whatever landscape orientation that you or your tripod demands
– Framing Tools – An aspect ratio framing guide and thirds guide help set up the perfect shot
– Super 35 Matte – Shoot in your cinema epic in letterbox widescreen
– Slate – a film Production Style Slate for adding information to your clips, syncing dual system audio, and organization
– Double Reticle Mode – gives you two separate adjustable reticles for spot sampling focus and exposure for precision shot set up.
– Single Reticle Mode – provides a center positioned spot sampling reticle for both focus and exposure for sports, action or quick run and gun scenarios
– Video Encoding – 3 separate bit rates from an economy rate of 8 to Apple’s Standard of 11 to a full Filmic Quality 14mbps
– Facebook and Cloud Sharing – Share your pro-quality videos to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Tumblr or upload them straight to the cloud cloud using DropBox or a FTP.