If you’re anything like me, your iPhone is filled with hundreds of photos (more backed up off site, preferably not with PhotoStream), but not that many videos, one or two perhaps. This is a universal issue that people like Wally Cherwinski are trying to fix. Years of dealing with shitty cameras with low memory and complicated video editing suites has made us believe that video is just hard. With the cameras in the iPhone (especially the 5s) and the plethora of apps on the App Store, that’s just not true anymore.
If you still hold this belief (which, I admit, I do) you need to download Fly. It’s a free app with lots of add-on IAPs but the free app will be more than enough for a start. The app wants to make the hardest part of making a beautiful video – editing, mixing and transitions – as easy as possible. It starts you off with a grid of 4 clips. You can either import pre-recorded clips or record new ones right from the app. There’s a limit of 20 seconds. There’s a seeker in the middle of the screen and a preview of the video up top. Once the videos are loaded, all you need to do is tap on a clip to add it to the video. All the preloaded videos will play in the preview simultaneously and you can switch from one to another just by tapping on them. Watching a video switch from one clip to another so smoothly is surreal, especially when you remember you’re doing this on your iPhone with a free app and not on a MacBook with an expensive video editing app like Final Cut Pro X.
And there’s more. Once you’ve finalized the video and edited it just they way you want, tap the Mic button on top and the app will record a voice over. You can add some music, but that’s only available for Pro users. IAPs will also unlock transitions when switching between clips, split screen and picture-in-picture mode for videos. Once you’ve crafted your video you can then share it on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr or just save it to your iPhone.
A lot of cool stuff in Fly is hidden behind the paywall. The coolest by far being the Multi Cam mode where you can mash up videos from four different iPhones over Wi-Fi. When you combine all the little upgrades the app offers, the final tally reaches north of $15 and that might seem a lot for a simple video editing app.
The best way to go about it is to download Fly and just start shooting and mixing stuff. It’s fun and a great way to break down the wall we’ve built over the years. Once you’ve got your feet wet, then you can decided to pay for Fly add-ons or to buy a fully featured video editing app instead. Fly is available for Free on the App Store.