Bootlegger: Citizen filmmaking app

Bootlegger is an app for real-time collaborative video shooting and editing that allows different people who have attended an event, e.g. a concert, to upload their footages, collect others’, and edit them into a single video.

Bootlegger bridges the gap between professional filmmakers and people with no prior filming experience wishing to record video on their mobile phone. Bootlegger makes it easy to capture multiple views of a place or topic, different stages of an event, or synchronised shots from people distributed around the world. The crew for each project can be recruited through the Bootlegger app and contribute to the design of the film shoot.

The app provides templates for close-ups, wide shots and many other scenarios. The shoot can even be planned beforehand, with different roles allocated and different templates set up, and Bootlegger provides tools for editing the video afterwards as well.

Bootlegger enables people to collaborate seamlessly, providing a forum where everyone’s creative input can be judged on its own terms.

Highlights

• Bootlegger projects include Loudest Whisper – a project to dispel the myths surrounding Stockton following the Benefits Street series. The project saw local people create and contribute their own footage and take part in editing the clips to show their own story.
• Berwick-upon-Tweed’s neighbourhood planning group used Bootlegger to film the local area with the intention of raising awareness of the work of the group and using the footage in future consultations.
• Bootlegger has been used in multiple digital civics research areas, ranging from education to neighbourhood planning and consultation projects such as MetroFutures.