MovieFunnel - 1.2

I have to say that I was suspicious of MovieFunnel's claim that it would allow instant editing. But not only does it, it does it without so much as a hiccup. I downloaded the contents of my Canon SureShot, which was a mix of movies and stills and dragged the clips and pix to the MovieFunnel main window. Immediately, without any moving of files or translating them or anything, the shots were arranged in the order I dragged them in. Moving them was as easy as dragging and dropping. Playback was immediate. Everything worked great and my image quality was perfect.

Editing in this program has been reduced to an elegantly simple set of controls that allow easy input of fine edits or that allow an effortless way to make edits on the fly. And the Magic Wand feature is great - there's no risk of ruining any source footage, because any time you want it restored, simply press the wand button and all your edits are forgiven. This is a great tool that I found allowed me to make all sorts of experimental edits really quickly, because I knew I could try them on for size and lose nothing if I didn't like them. And no matter what, the way MovieFunnel works is by never changing the actual source clips from your camera, and so this program is safe. That makes it fun, because you have the freedom to experiment, and to experiment FAST!

Playback is smooth, fast and easy. Everything in MovieFunnel is easy. It is a relief of a program.

Another great feature is the narration. It is unbelievably easy to record narration. The guiding princliple in movieFunnel seems to be to allow the user to accomplish the basic tasks found in fatter editing programs without any of the headaches, and this is true in the narration mode, too. Just click the icon, click record and there you go.

Something that I found a lot of fun is the time lapse feature, though I haven't had a chance to play with it as much as I will. There is absolutely nothing to making a scene speed up for that great super-fast action look. I can imagine using it for cloudscapes, sunsets, kids playing. I spent about a minute - I am not exaggerating - making my first-ever speeded-up movie, and it looks like I pulled some highly technical trickery.

The more I look in MovieFunnel the more I discover its features, which is really cool because it allows a basic user to start immediately. I mean immediately! As soon as I downloaded and chose not to register right away I had a little movie edited. Seriously, something like five minutes later I had something I emailed my friends. And it even gives you a choice of ways to export the movie, depending on quality and your internet connection and all that. I think you could make a totally professional movie or just something fast and easy to email your friends or to upload to YouTube in a hurry. This is amazingly convenient.

This program is great. I don't really know it that well yet, but it works great, it's fast fast fast, and I mean instant, there's no waiting like there is with iMovie while your clips churn away forever getting in there, and the interface is fun and easy. Plus, with the titles and sound, I'm not sure there's much more that I'd want a movie editor to do.

I've been waiting for something that's as easy to use as taking the shots is. MovieFunnel definitely delivers this. Usually the work starts after the pictures and movies are in the camera - with MovieFunnel I really had as much fun using the program (I'm an instant gratification junkie, I'll admit it) as I did shooting the pictures, and the best part was being able to share my stuff in minutes, not hours.

Overall - great qualtiy, ease of use, thoughtful layout and interface, and a lot of features without being complicated. I really like this program and I know I'll use it all the time.

I'll definitely be coughing up the shareware price.

Thanks, MovieFunnel! Way to go!