Alight Motion - motion graphics app

Alight Motion – pro motion graphics app for your smartphone

Alight Motion is a new motion graphics and editing app for Android smartphones. It’s free to use with basic features and a watermark on videos you create. After that, the options I am given (in £) are £3.19/month or £1.59/month if you pay annually.

The app brings you “professional-quality” animation, motion graphics, visual effects, video editing, and video compositing.

Features

• Multiple layers of graphics, video, and audio
• Vector and bitmap support (edit vector graphics right on your phone!)
• Visual effects and color correction
• Keyframe animation available for all settings
• Animating easing for more fluid motion: Pick from presets or build your own timing curves
• Velocity-based motion blur
• Export MP4 video or GIF animation
• Solid color and gradient fill effects
• Border and shadow effects
• Group layers together
• Save your favorite elements for easy re-use in future projects

Looks like fun and obviously designed for social media use rather than serious films? Having said that, who knows what might become the next thing … why not use it to make whatever movies you’re intending to make? At some point, we have to move on from trying to be Scorsese or whatever, don’t we?

We’ve recently been watching a Netflix show called You. Apart from its theme of being set in a world where we all use messaging and social media (and the dangers therein), I noticed they’re adding Instagram-style “tilt shift” blurring around the edges of a lot of frames (or masking parts and blurring). This is something only recently considered the sign of an amatuer filmmaker.

People considered Instagram filters to be cheap gimmicks to make your photos look better than they actually are. Well, don’t knock cheap gimmicks because Netflix are cool with it. And why not? Everything at the disposal of the digital filmmaker is fair game. Blurring parts of your picture with crude masks is not the “film look”, but it comes from trying to get an approximation of a low depth of field without having to add big expensive lenses.

Thing is, as time goes on, the more traditional filmmaking styles and social media style video-making will cross over. They will continue to inform each other until the line between them is tilt-shifted away. So why are Netflix cool with Instagram style effects on their movies? Because the younger generations are growing used to seeing it, far more than they’re used to seeing actual film grain or a nice 35mm dolly shot.

There will always be a space for purists. Like, people still listen to vinyl and get excited about the depth of sound produced by Abbey Road Studios in 1973 (or something). But the masses are embracing new styles, new looks, new ways to make films. And why not?

Aside from that, if you’re making social media videos for fun or for work, Alight Motion could be a very useful tool. For adding transition effects or simple animated titles, without having to boot up your laptop.

Eager to learn more?
Join our weekly newsletter featuring inspiring stories, no-budget filmmaking tips and comprehensive equipment reviews to help you turn your film projects into reality!