Vyclone, an L.A. start-up, launches video-combining iOS app
A Silicon Beach start-up run by two men from London, including the son of music legend Sting, just launched an iOS app that takes video from people shot at the same event and edits it into one multi-angle collaboration.
Vyclone, as the app and the company are both called, is available now on iOS for free. The app takes videos shot by up to four people using the app and combines them into one video using various algorithms to mix up the multiple angles and synchronize them.
Vyclone Inc. founder said the app is good for events where multiple people are already shooting videos such as concerts, sporting events or breaking news. An example that you can see here shows a motocross run.
You can keep the videos between your “crew” of friends or choose to mix yours with angles from people you don’t know who were also shooting in your proximity using the app.
Vyclone then mixes the angles and churns out a video, but if you don’t like the way it was edited, you can go back and edit it yourself or have Vyclone give you another random mix. After choosing which version you like, you can share it on the app with other users or export it to Facebook or Twitter.
Sadly, exporting to YouTube requires you to first save the edited video to your phone and then export it from your camera roll.
Users can also take other people’s videos and cut their own mixes. Vyclone co-founder and Chief Executive David Lassman said some of the best videos he’s seen on the app during its testing phase have been cut by people who had nothing to do with the original video.
The app itself is laid out very much like Instagram and joins others who have copied that style, including GifBoom and Cinemagram. But Lassman said he believes Vyclone will stand out as it implores people to make the experience social in order to make a better product as opposed to Instagram and others like it where users can make successful creations on their own.
Vyclone has been in the works for the last two years and has received $2.7 million in seed money from Ashton Kutcher’s A-GRade investments, Live Nation, DreamWorks Animations Investments and Thrive Capital.
Co-founders Lassman and Joseph Sumner said that for now Vyclone will just focus on gaining as many users as it can before shifting toward generating revenue. Tentative plans call for premium models down the line with additional features, such as the ability to shoot videos for longer than Vyclone’s current one-minute limit.
Lassman, whose team consists of 13 people in both Los Angeles and London, said versions of Vyclone on other platforms, including Android, are in the works.
Sumner, Sting’s son and the lead singer and bassist for the band Fiction Plane, came up with the idea for the app when he noticed the number of people who would film him at his concerts. There were so many videos, but individually, they were no good.
“Everybody’s filming my gig, but what’s happening to these videos?” Lassman said, speaking about Sumner’s experience. “They’re 20-second videos that are going up to YouTube that’s compromising my brand because the audio is not good, the visual is not good. No one is benefiting from this.”
Lassman and Sumner hope to change that.
“I want to connect those people,” Sumner said. “I want to connect that content.”
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