video editing for smartphones

[Stacey K]

I want to make a 1.5-1.75 hr documentary using the Samsung galaxy s5 (32GB, 128GB SD card), and KineMaster video editing software for android. Can it be done? Will I have enough space or will I need an external hard drive. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[mmntech]

It's doable, sure, but it's far from ideal. Your going to have a large shot list with a doc that long. It's going to be much easier to manage your workflow editing on a desktop or laptop using a keyboard. I know from my own experience making docs back in college that there's a lot of work involved in the editing process, and those were only short films.

Is this your first movie? What kind of experience do you have?

 

[Zaap]

Is this a proof of concept or something? Because otherwise, I can't see the point. Even as a concept, it's enough to shoot somethng on a smartphone that anyone would want to watch- no one will care what something is edited with, so why the limitation? Use a laptop or desktop and proper editing software and you'll thank yourself.

Otherwise, if you're insisting on using the smartphone for everything, I'd personally only try to tackle small segments at a time and make sure they can be exported.

It's likely the software is really only meant for small clips of a few minutes tops, or YouTube or whatever streaming- not long form projects.

Quite likely, past a certain number of minutes everything will start to bog down as hardware and software limitations are reached, and you'll risk losing everything, or at best, not being able to export the finished edit. Even a decent laptop can bog down past a certain point with a lot of edits- a smartphone I seriously doubt could handle much more than 15-20 minute blocks of edited video without bogging down and reaching file sizes it simply doesn't have the capacity (RAM, CPU, storage) to handle.

 

[luv2liv]

i edit videos for a living. editing movies on such a puny screen will either drive you insane or you're gonna go blind.

 

[soccerballtux]

yeah you definitely want to use a desktop. even then editing the first 2 minutes of intro on mine was a 16 hour day.

 

[bearxor]

I've edited news stories for air on a smartphone before. Back when the iPhone 4 was new we were kind of pushing for more mobile journalism.

It works but keep in mind most of those stories were 45-90s long and a couple of packages would be only a few minutes long. You had to shoot very specifically to make editing easy.

I'd imagine that for something that long simply organizing your clips would be a nightmare.

And what you're asking to do isn't exactly groundbreaking anymore. That path has been blazed. If you need to shoot in a phone, I'm all for it. But edit it on something that's won't make you want to pull your hair out.

 

[mmntech]

Expanding on what I said, a lot of smartphone editors are really basic. Little better than iMovie. Best one I've seen is Pinnacle Studio for iPad. At least then you can work with a decent sized screen. As I said, it's doable but far from ideal. Like trying to drive a car with square wheels.

I made a 20min travel doc about five years ago in college. It has three segments. Each segment is made up of dozens of shots. It took about two weeks to edit the thing. A lot of 16 hour days. That was a collaborative project as well.

Plus if you want to add music or effects, you'd have to import those to your phone. There's just a lot of information to manage on such a small screen with such a limited control interface. You have to keep all your files on the same device too.

If you need a good, cheap, professional editing program, try LightWorks. Their public betas are free. It has a steep learning curve though. Especially if you're trained on other NLE software. You can also use Premiere Pro CC, which is $20/mo. $240 a year isn't bad considering how much a lot of other standalone products cost.

Have a Mac, Final Cut X is the only program you should be using.

yeah you definitely want to use a desktop. even then editing the first 2 minutes of intro on mine was a 16 hour day.

People have no idea how much work goes into a half hour of television.

I've edited news stories for air on a smartphone before. Back when the iPhone 4 was new we were kind of pushing for more mobile journalism.

We were using the Dejero app at one time for live hits. It's great. Big car crash, you can rush a reporter out there with only a phone and a small tripod. Streams it through LTE back to the station. They had a GoBox too for ENG camera hits.

That was unheard of just a couple of years ago. Before you needed a broadcast truck or mini-mobile to handle that. Usually with a microwave transmitter, or at minimum an ethernet connection.

 

[bearxor]

We were using the Dejero app at one time for live hits. It's great. Big car crash, you can rush a reporter out there with only a phone and a small tripod. Streams it through LTE back to the station. They had a GoBox too for ENG camera hits.

That was unheard of just a couple of years ago. Before you needed a broadcast truck or mini-mobile to handle that. Usually with a microwave transmitter, or at minimum an ethernet connection.

It is pretty amazing. Back in 2005, I actually made a 'Live Pack' which consisted of a small-ish camera hooked up to a MBP with firewire and then a AT&T HSPA+ card to connect to skype and then a laptop in the control room to accept the call full-screen and plugged in to the switcher. I could walk around parades and events and put that live on the air. So nice and mobile.

Little did I think that it would be just this amazing thing that more people wanted. I was just doing it because I could and because the station had a need that could be fulfilled. Now LiveU sells stuff like that pre-made and ready to go.

 

[mmntech]

It is pretty amazing. Back in 2005, I actually made a 'Live Pack' which consisted of a small-ish camera hooked up to a MBP with firewire and then a AT&T HSPA+ card to connect to skype and then a laptop in the control room to accept the call full-screen and plugged in to the switcher. I could walk around parades and events and put that live on the air. So nice and mobile.

Little did I think that it would be just this amazing thing that more people wanted. I was just doing it because I could and because the station had a need that could be fulfilled. Now LiveU sells stuff like that pre-made and ready to go.

It's great tech. Only issue with the smartphone app is you need to be near the tower to get a stable stream. GoBox doesn't have that issue because it has a more powerful transmitter.

I was hoping to do more mobiles like that before the company I was working for went belly up. Had big plans to cover the auto show live this year.