In recent years, we’ve come to rely on iPhone’s as a readily available source of information, and this goes for on-set reference tools as much as any other area of life. iPhone apps have been developed for nearly every aspect of production, and now there are apps designed for those working in the Grip and Electric departments.

theGripApp (Enlightened Shenanigans, $4.99) is designed specifically as a reference manual for those working as grips, describing itself as 25% dictionary, 25% equipment stats, 25% descriptions of equipment, and 25% practical applications. A wide variety of equipment is presented, from dollies to flags to cranes, all with detailed specs and images directly from the manufacturer. In fact, the app is helpfully organized into four categories (Dolly, Cranes, Hardware, Rigging) to make it easier to find exactly the information you’re looking for.

Enlightened Shenanigans also makes another app, setLighting ($9.99) that presents a wealth of information, in this case on lighting equipment. It is organized (similarly to theGripApp) into four categories: Lights, Power, Bulbs, and Useful. The app provides a guide to the most common lighting units in the production world, including images, specs, available accessories, and bulb options. An especially helpful feature is the power distribution cheat sheets, such as the amperage usage chart and the maximum ampacity chart. setLighting is a great reference guide for anyone working with fixed lighting.

Ever since Mitch’s original iPhone app blog, we’ve been discovering more and more apps that we think our clients will find useful. Check out our iPhone Apps for Modern Cinematographers resource for a list of apps, organized into categories such as FOV calculators, timecode, filters, etc. Don’t forget to bookmark the page, as we will be continually updating and adding more to our list.

Our client Emery Wells at Katabatic Digital has created a handy memory usage calculator app for the iPhone. KataData is a storage and runtime calculator with more than 100 camera and record format options, including cameras from ARRI, Canon, JVC, Panasonic, RED, Sony, and Vision Research. If you plug in a runtime, it will tell you the memory needed, or you can plug in a memory amount and it will tell you how much runtime it allows. Switch cameras or codecs and it will calculate a new corresponding memory amount or runtime; this is useful when transcoding material or when shooting with a different format on a B-camera. Calculations can be stored in a log which can be adjusted and edited, then emailed to the production office or post house. It’s a great tool for any data wrangler, DIT or AC.

KataData is available for $4.99 in the iTunes Store.

When we launched our blog in 2009, our goal was to share the expertise of our technical staff with our clients. Our instructional and “At the Bench” videos have become a popular feature of CineTechnica, and now we’ve made them even easier to watch on the go.

In addition to being accessible on YouTube and Vimeo, the great majority of the videos on our website and blog are now iOS friendly. This means you can keep up with latest video posts from our AbelCine experts on your iPhone, iPad or other mobile device from the set, or anywhere you have internet access.

Visit blog.abelcine.com/tag/video on your iOS device today.

Need to generate timecode easily on your iPhone or iPad? There’s an app for that.

JumpStart LTC is an elegant and easy to use app designed by Abel client Edward Richardson, which generates a Longitudinal Timecode audio signal. It also allows you to manually set your frame rate and userbits. Simply plug in a headphone cable to your iPhone/iPad, connect the other end to the timecode slate (or other device) of your choice, and it will jam sync to JumpStart LTC. Since iPhones have become such ubiquitous sights on any shoot, it’s always great when something like this comes along to make our lives a little easier.

For more info, visit the iTunes App Store or the official site here. JumpStart LTC is 50% off for the entire month of May!

A few months back I compiled the first set of iPhone Apps for the Modern Cinematographer. We got a lot of feedback asking for more, along with plenty of suggestions for favorite apps from our readers. Every week or two I get another request wondering when we’ll have another list of apps. iTunes has over 75,000 apps now, so there were plenty to find. For many of these apps there are other similar ones that you may find more to your liking. I’ve tried to dig through to find what is interesting and unique about these little gems; your mileage may vary.

Movie*Slate (PureBlend Software, $9.99)

There are a bunch of slate marker apps available now for the iPhone. This one has a clapper that delivers a satisfying audible “snap” when shaken. It also allows for “jamming” timecode between it and other iPhones and iPod Touches, not that this really gets you anywhere because it is still a closed loop. But niftiest of all is a shot logging feature that allows one to insert vocal or typed notes for a given take. For doc work, one can even speak into the iPhone during a take (hey, quiet back there!) and the notes will log the timecode. The material can even be exported in a Final Cut XML file so that it can be laid down along your timeline for editing reference.

…continue reading iPhone Apps for Modern Cinematographer Pt II

Following in the footsteps of the Leatherman and the Maglite, the iPhone has become one of those ubiquitous tools that is on every set. With 50,000 apps available, there were bound to be some clever programs written for use in our industry. (We can’t all spend our days pretending to wield lightsabers…) Here’s a list I compiled of some clever apps that may be useful. All are available at the iTunes Apps Store.

pCam (David Eubank, $39.99)
The mother of all lens calculators. Originally written for the old Palm Pilot, pCam has been updated for the iPhone with an intuitive graphical interface. It calculates depth of field, field of view, focus splits, hyperfocal distance, exposure compensation, running time, HMI safe speeds and shutters, color correction filters, diopter shift, macro, time lapse, underwater focus distance, illumination beam intensity, light coverage and even has a built-in Siemen’s Star focus chart.

iSee4k (Edward Watkins, free with $7.50 donation request)
A must when using the RED One camera. Calculators for depth of field, field of view, storage requirements in both space and time, frame rate & timebase settings and workflow throughput.

…continue reading iPhone Apps for the Modern Cinematographer