Kino 1.0

New from Lux, makers of Halide:

Today we’re excited to launch Kino, a powerful filmmaking app for beginners and experts alike. As say they say in screenwriting, “Show, Don’t tell,” so let’s walk through a few of the tent-pole features in our huge 1.0 release. [...]

Last fall, everything changed when Apple introduced “Log” video support on the iPhone 15 Pro. When recording in this format, your iPhone saves a version of your video with most of the original information, and before any creative decisions have been applied. Using that cake analogy, it’s like the iPhone now saves all the ingredients that make up a cake, but leaves you to do the baking.

That’s great if you’re a skilled baker… er… colorist… but it’s challenging for most of us. Out of the box, Apple Log footage looks really flat. It’s not meant to look good. It’s meant to be edited later.

But what if you didn’t have to edit? What if you could use all that powerful extra color data and get a cinematic look with one tap?

What a delightful prosumer balance Kino strikes. Preset color grades include some from Evan Schneider, Tyler Stalman, Stu Maschwitz, Sandwich Video, and Kevin Ong.

And I just adore some of the UI touches in the app, like drawing a big red border around the entire display when recording footage. It’s like those big red lights in TV studios.

Kino is going to cost $20 as a one-time purchase, but is available at launch for just $10. What a great deal.

See also: Lux cofounders Sebastiaan de With and Ben Sandofsky were my guests on The Talk Show back in October, and dropped some hints about what is now Kino.

★ Thursday, 30 May 2024