The Best Movie App: Super 8

I just found the best movie app on the iPhone and it's called Super 8.  iPhone users love to take pictures.  And they love to shoot video.  Super 8 will appeal to those types of people.  Super 8 also takes advantage of the retro style that is "in" at the moment.

Now, I'm a little too young for the generation that actually used Super 8 film cameras.  Still, this app has the right feel.  It feels like an app that one could charge one or two dollars for.  Instead, it's free.

When you fire up your app you go straight to the camera with the viewfinder and many buttons.  For those of you who do not know what a Super 8 camera is it only records video.  It does not take pictures.

So, you have your button that toggles the scratches on the video.  You can hit the aqua button to change the effect of your video.  You can use either the front or rear camera.  There's a timer so you can see how long your video is.  There's a toggle for the video shake, which I had a hard time with.  And there's the record button at the bottom.

I love the effect when you swipe left to change the camera view.  It's like you have the camera in your hand and you're just turning the camera.  And that brings us to...

... the side of the camera.  Okay this is all just for effect.  This is where you eject your "film" so you can "develop" it.  More on developing later.  Another left swipe takes you to...

... the front of the Super 8 camera.  This is where you change your camera lens.  There's Color, Chromatic, Black & White, Sepia, X-Ray, Negative, and Infrared.

If you hit the case button it takes you...

... here.  It's your Super 8 camera in a case.  There is a pretty lengthy instruction manual, a place to buy tickets for the Super 8 movie, a place to put your developed films and a camera to scan a Super 8 poster for more content.

Once you have recorded a movie, you eject the film from the side of the camera then it takes it you...

... here.  So you can put together the clips you have recorded in Super 8.  It already comes with the leader clip.  Once you have everything in the correct order you can hit the bottom button to develop your film.

After your film is developed you are taken to this screen.  This is your library of reels.  You can delete them or play them here.  When you take your reel out of the box...

... you go to the projector room.  The projector is really loud so you can't get a real good sense of the audio while previewing it here.  The projector sound does not attach to your clip when you save it to the camera roll.  To watch your movie just swipe the screen down...

... and hit play.  Reverse and forward work very nicely.  I remember the days of pulling down screens and film projectors at school.  In the upper right corner you can choose to save your video to your camera roll or e-mail it.

















I'm going to try and catch the movie "Super 8" sometime this weekend.  In the meantime, I hope you find this app useful.