For better or worse I have never been a huge “video guy” — always into photography and never that much interested in motion photography. I have though over there years tried piecing together crappy video clips I have taken with various versions of iMovie. Even screencasts that I recorded resulted in a frustrating video editing experience.
Frustrating because nothing was ever easy — a constant fight between what I see in my minds eye and what the software won’t let me do. Then comes the encoding and compressing and general software operations that will make your Mac into a makeshift George Foreman Grill.
All of this to say that I was rather skeptical about the viability of iMovie on an iPhone when the iPhone 4 came out. Sure enough, iMovie on the iPhone is a rather poor and imprecise experience. An exercise in masochism. Then Apple decided that iMovie on the iPad 2 makes a whole bucket of sense and I loathed having to give it a go.
I bought iMovie, opened it and looked around and then moved on. I knew I would have to come back so I could write something, but I wanted to wait for that moment when I actually had something to create — I can only film my cats so much before they start to get annoyed.
Down at SXSW I decided that I wanted to shoot a little video to show people what my “mobile” setup looked like. Instinctively I grabbed my iPhone to shoot the video, but quickly put it down and decided to shoot and edit the entire clip on my iPad. Something I had never attempted before.
In less time than it has ever taken me to record and edit a video I produced a short clip with a voice over added after the fact in no time at all. The iPad did the encoding and converting quickly and painlessly. Had I had full broadband speed internet the entire affair would have been but a blip in my day — instead thanks to too many nerds the network speed and subsequent upload to Vimeo was quit slow.
What I learned is this: editing video on the iPad is the only way to go. I can’t see a need for ever wanting to edit on my Mac again. iMovie for the iPad really hits a sweet spot and that sweet spot is called user experience. It offers a grand user experience. I think the iPad is really starting to find its spot in my life.