TapCritic – Honest iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch App Reviews

When I saw iSlate by iBuiltThis, I had to get it.  I have been, for most of my life, a film geek.  I started by watching constantly in my childhood, and then moved into making amateur movies.  Now I do video and film work for cash, so the idea of a slate on my iPhone sounded too cool to pass up.

Don't be fooled: this is for a porno shoot.

Now, this application honestly has very little value to most people.  Unless you are shooting film that you have to sync up with your audio recording in post, slating takes with a clap board has gone the way of the dodo.  For those few people out there shooting low-budget 8mm and 16mm film, though, this is a great alternative to finding an expensive timecode-generating clap board.

What is it?  Well, it is a digital slate, giving you both a visual and audio reference to sync audio and video with time-of-day timecode.

The app works well, allowing you to put in the project name and director’s name as well as input scene number and take number.  It runs time of day timecode, and when you “clap” your board shut, the timecode freezes so you can find it on your audio recording device.  In general, it works the same as any other clapboard (as long as you are cool with time of day timecode).  In addition, you can write a slate log and email it to yourself, a fancy function even for videographers.

If you need this to understand a slate, you probably shouldn't have spent the $2.99.

But the good design and the high functionality isn’t why I wanted this.  I wanted it for the novelty of having a clap board on my phone.  Even when shooting with your crappy DV camcorder, it would be fun to use this app to pretend you are a professional, and it is a nice add-on for kids playing around with video for the first time.

It’s $2.99 on the iTunes store which is expensive if you are using it as a novelty, but I understand the pricing.  This is a specialty app for a specialty crowd, and $2.99 is very reasonable all things considered.

Now if only the iPhone could link with iSlate and shoot video with log notes, you’d have a fully-functioning crappy movie studio in your pocket.

You can buy iSlate HERE.

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