I’m huge geek. I cut my cinematic teeth on Super 8 when I was a kid. I love Star Trek. Steven Spielberg’s best films are Jurassic Park and before. And the last episode of LOST pushed all the right buttons for me. There’s a connection here and that’s J.J. Abrams. And now, his production company, Bad Robot, along with QMx have created an iPhone app. And like everything else J.J. has touched lately, it pretty much rocks.
Super 8, the official iPhone app of the upcoming Super 8 blockbuster, is in the App Store now. It’s FREE for a limited time. That’s a steal. This app is awesome. Grab it now.
Of course, the movie tie-in would be a Super 8 emulator. But it’s nothing like you’d expect. I thought the app would be weak, frustrating, feature-lite Super 8 camera app that beats you over the head with movie tie-in. I was wrong on both accounts.
With the exception of a little bit of text on the splash screen while the app loads and some mysterious frames inserted in your clip when viewed in the app’s Projector that thankfully doesn’t export, there is extremely little movie promotion. Instead, it’s a solid retro movie camera app that nods fondly to the heyday of Super 8.
The app starts straight up in the nicely-retro, analog-style skinned camera UI that’s a great homage to all that was Super 8. It takes you straight to shooting.
The camera has lots of buttons to play with. That means there are a good amount of vintage effects here, including live film scratches, vignettes, light leaks. The camera supports hardware torch and front facing camera on equipped devices. It records sound, but as Super 8 cameras didn’t have a blimp, it also adds camera noise.
The “Case” acts as sort of a command center for the app and takes you to the Camera, Library and Manual.
Once you’re done with your clip, the app saves it to the app’s Library and adds an old Kodak white leader. To view your film in-app, there’s a built-in “projector” that doesn’t work until you pull the screen down.
Not only is the manual extensive and tells you everything you need to know about the app, it behaves like a printed manual, complete with the sights and sounds of page flips. The graphic design of the manual — and the entire app, for that matter — looks like it came right out of 1974. Bitchin’!
There’s a lot of fun details in this app. Not only is Super 8â„¢ a fun app to explore, it’s a great Super 8 camera emulator. The app store description says it’s free for a limited time, so grab it now. Regardless of whether it’s a movie tie-in, it’s a fun camera that will make you feel like it’s junior high school film club again.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.
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UPDATE 05.10.11 @ 09:32: Clarified the inserted frames. =M=
