There are many good smartphone video editing apps on the market, but for my work, the VN video editing app for iPhone and Android gets the job done better than any other tool based on ease of use and powerful controls. And here’s the catch – it’s free.
VN’s interface is intuitive and allows you to layer text, location and other features easily onto the video track. The image below shows a geolocation layer I added over a video of a construction project in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood.
You can easily expand and short clips in the timeline by pinching or widening with your fingers. You can tap between clips to add slick transitions like cross-dissolves as well as balance color and more. Exporting the video requires only a couple of taps and it’s saved to your camera roll, where you can share over social channels, YouTube or video. It offers a variety of common export settings and file formats.
VN is the most intuitive video editor I’ve used. I currently have five editors on my iPhone X and have deleted many others over the years. The Luma Touch smartphone app also gets high marks for editing from many videographers, but form my money and ease of use, I’ll stick with VN.
While I use VN primarily on my smartphone, there is a MacIntosh app that launched in early 2021. I would still recommend using Adobe Premiere over other video editors like VN because of the quality and control you have over settings and export.
Video: How to use the VN video editor app:
Quick tip: Tired of back-and-forth emails when trying to schedule a meeting? Calendly offers free and low-cost packages that helps you schedule the meeting in one place. Doodle is a similar tools that offers a poll of times for participants to mark best times to meet. The free version has worked well for me but you can pay small fees to get extra features and schedule more meetings.
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Tagged under: video editing, video editor