Editing video has always been a somewhat tedious process that requires a lot of graphical horsepower and skill to pull off correctly. Sure, apps like iMovie and the like have tried to make things easier, but they’re never really fun, now are they?
With that in mind, in comes Game Your Video, an app that’s built from the ground up to make the process of making movies fun. So does it succeed or fall flat on its face? Let’s hit the arcade and find out after the jump.
A Little More About the Concept
Although this app may seem at first like sugar coating a serious topic, there is a difference between Game Your Video and other video apps — one that’s quite important, really.
This is real-time editing. You’re not spending hours tweaking stills and moving them around to various points in a film strip, you’re really editing as you go, tapping and pressing quickly to add effects on the fly. Sure you can tweak things to specific points if you like, but that’s not what I took away from my time with the app. It’s more about having fun with your movies as you go, and that’s exactly what I had — fun.
How It Works
The first thing that happens once you open the app is you’re presented with what looks like a video game controller with the title stamped in the middle. This is your key navigation area, and by swiping side to side you can move between various sections including Cut and Join, Reverse and “I Did This.” The first two are fairly self explanatory, but the latter is a collection of other Game Your Video users’s videos, organized by Most Recent, Most Viewed and By Features.
Just one of the four main screen options at your disposal.
To get right to gaming your video though, you just need to tap that controller from the start and move forward. Once inside you can either game an existing video that you’ve already built through the app, or start fresh with one from your iPhone’s camera roll. There’s no way to shoot fresh video that I saw in my time with the app, but I could be wrong.
If you want to have a ton of fun, game one video, then do the same video again with a completely different set of tools. The resulting movie will have multiple effects overlaid on top of each other, which can look really fun and crazy.
Playing the Game
With your video chosen, now you can move on to the next part, and this is where it gets a bit confusing. There’s a very iPhoto-esque slider bar positioned across the bottom of the screen, which you can flick left and right to add your various effects. There are a ton of them in there, from visual to audio and everything in between, but if you want to keep it simple, you can just click the Flavor button.
That little slider bar at the bottom kinda sucks.
Here’s where you can pick from a few different video and audio presets to set the mood for your movie. You can do Chaplin for an old-timey look, Comedy for when you want to add a laugh track, or Action for various other special effects. There are 12 different presets to choose from, so have some fun with it.
Underneath that preset section though are a film reel and a music note, which give you a way to create your own preset of sorts. Click the film reel and there are 12 video presets for whatever your heart desires, and if you go with the music note, you can either select background music to play or other effects like changing your voice or having horror sounds play.
Kind of like Baskin Robbins, but with less lactose.
Ultimately, there are a ton of presets and options available for your movie, and that’s great. For me, the problem was navigating the UI. It was confusing at first to flip between all these different options just to find that there were more layers underneath, but now that I’ve had some time behind the wheel it makes more sense. Just know before you go into it that there’s a bit of a learning curve involved.
Tweaks and More Tweaks
Once you’ve picked out your presets, hit Play on the video and everything goes live. Each action you can perform is along the bottom of the screen, so simply touch the icon and it applies to the video right away, on the fly. By sliding the bottom of the screen left and right you can apply additional effects as well, so make sure not to miss something.
Each effect changes the color on the film strip reel.
If you’re like me, you might apply a filter that completely throws off the look and feel of your video, and that’s OK. There is a way to fix it. Notice that white vertical line that’s centered above the effects bar? While your video plays above, there’s a film strip that goes across that white vertical line, indicating at what point in the video you’re in. Each video effect is displayed as a blue overlay to that film strip, while audio is an orangish color. To remove one of your effects, just slide the film strip over to the effect you want to remove and look for the white X that appears above it. Tap the X and away goes the effect, just like that.
Once your movie is done, there are tons of sharing options, including YouTube, Facebook and exporting to your Camera Roll.
Is It Worth The Cash?
Game Your Video is a little bit like an onion, in that it has lots and lots of layers. In some situations, it’s easier and more user friendly than iMovie, making joining clips a one-touch affair. But in others, it lacks the horsepower that you might want if you were putting together something a bit more professional.
For me, I think this is a great tool to have in your video producing arsenal. Maybe you do a rough cut in Game Your Video, add some effects in iMovie and go back to Game Your Video to put on a soundtrack. There are tons of possibilities here, with the only limit being your imagination.
My only real complaint is the UI, and again, it’s something you kind of get used to. And once you’ve made those first few videos, it’s easy to get hooked. So should you make the buy? If you’re someone who likes making movies, pull the trigger and make it happen, then let us know what you think in the comments below.