In this post, I show how easy it is to shoot and edit a science video entirely with your smartphone.  With an easy-to-use app, called Videolicious, you can quickly create a one-minute video about a new or on-going science project, a recent laboratory experiment, a field trip, a class exercise, or some other aspect of your work.

Using your phone’s camera, you shoot some video footage. You can also download animations, photos, or other film clips from public domain sites to the camera roll on your phone or upload any footage you’ve shot with another device.  Then with Videolicious, you create your movie in three simple steps:

1) Select the video clips you want to include.

2) Record your narrative, again using your smartphone camera.

3) Select background music (optional)

Then Videolicious puts it all together for you.  You can then share your movie by email or social media or upload to YouTube.

Here’s a video showing how it works and an example of a video I created with my iPhone (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

In this video, I uploaded some footage I had shot previously, then recorded the narrative with my iPhone.  However, I could just as easily have recorded all footage with my iPhone.

The basic version of Videolicious is FREE, but is limited to one-minute duration videos, 10 shots per video, and 20 video storage.  For $60 per year, you can make 10-minute videos, use more shots and have more storage capacity, access to a music library and a few more perks.  I actually like the one-minute limitation because it forces you to really refine your message and your video clips.  If you want to make longer videos, you are better off using a movie editing program such as iMovie.