VideoBro / Trips
Eight phones, one trip, one film.
Start the tape before you go, invite everyone, film from your own iPhones, watch it fill up. The trip comes home as one film.
Free on iPhone, with 2 GB to start. No trial, no card.
Everyone filmed. Nobody has the trip.
A week away, eight phones out: somebody filmed the whole hike up and never sent it, the ferry crossing is split across three phones that never line up, and the group chat is full of video files nobody's opened. By the time everyone's home, no one actually has the trip. Everyone has scraps of it, stuck on their own camera roll.
Collecting all of that after the fact tends not to happen, not once everyone is home and back at work. A tape solves it from the other end: it collects the footage as it happens, instead of waiting for someone to chase it down afterward. That's the whole trick: get everyone filming into the same place from the start, and there's nothing left to gather once a weekend away is over. See how the whole thing works, or read how to collect everyone's videos after a trip, including the ways that don't involve VideoBro at all. If it was really just you filming, not a whole group, here's the honest rundown of what to do with a phone full of trip clips.
Set it up before you leave
Three things, in order. The first one is a name and a tap.
-
Start the tape at home, not at the gate
Tap New Tape and name it before anyone's packed: the dates, the place, whatever you'd write on the spine. Do it now and the first clip on the tape is the one at the airport, not the one from day two when somebody remembers.
-
Send the invite the week you leave
Tap Collab, then Invite, and drop the link in the trip's group chat the week you go: invite links last 7 days, a tape holds 8 people including you, and joining doesn't need an account. How the crew works, and what to send so people actually film.
-
Agree who films what
Settle it in the chat before anyone leaves: everyone films sideways with REC on, someone takes the mornings and someone the nights, and whoever joins late adds what they already shot with +, where it lands at the moment it was recorded. Already started a Shared Album for the trip? Its videos can go on the tape too, each placed by the date saved with it.
Film the parts between the postcards
A trip is the one case where more phones can make it worse rather than better. Everyone points at the same view at the same moment, so you come home with six versions of one photograph and nothing at all from the days around it. The fix isn't filming more. It's saying out loud, before you go, who's got the boring parts.
- The start of each day. Ten seconds of where you are, the weather and who's up, said out loud. A tape has no titles, so this is what tells the film which day it is.
- The travel itself. The airport floor, the third hour of the drive, whoever fell asleep first. Nobody films this, and it's a good half of the trip.
- The place before anyone unpacks. The rental, the room, the kitchen, still tidy. You get one shot at that and it's gone by dinner.
- Whoever's driving, and whoever's navigating badly. The argument about the exit is the part you'll actually quote back at each other for years.
- Breakfast, and the slow start. Nobody's dressed, nobody's decided anything, somebody is already annoyed about the plan.
- The shop run. Working out what eight people will eat, in a supermarket where none of you can find anything.
- The view, but leave the sound on. The picture of it is already on five phones. What isn't recorded anywhere is what everyone was saying while they looked at it.
- Packing up, and the wait to leave. Bags by the door, the last coffee, the room emptied out again.
- The last morning. Whoever's up first, and whoever is refusing to be.
The other half of it is rotation. If one person films the whole week, the tape has everybody on it except them, and they're the one who'll notice. Hand it around: someone takes the mornings, someone takes the nights, and nobody is expected to film everything.
On the road: signal, space and roaming
Trips are hard on phones. A few things go wrong on almost every one, and each has a simple answer.
- No signal on the trail. Keep filming. Clips save to the phone and upload by themselves once there's a connection again, even with the app closed.
- Abroad, and watching roaming charges. With data roaming off, clips wait on the phone and upload once you're back on Wi-Fi. With it on, they upload over roaming data like anything else.
- A phone that fills up on day three. Check everyone's free space before you go: a week of 4K fills a phone faster than people expect, and a full phone stops recording mid-hike. The video storage calculator shows what each camera setting costs.
- A friend on Android. They can't film into the tape, but they can send their videos to someone on it, who adds them with +. Everyone watches the finished film in a browser.
One tape for the trip, or one per leg?
A weekend away fits on one tape. A week with eight people filming can run past the two hours a tape holds, which works out to roughly fifteen minutes each, and a trip that long usually has more than that worth keeping. Split it where the trip already splits, and each part comes home as its own film.
Space usually runs out before time does. Until a tape is developed, every clip on it counts on its owner's 2 GB, about an hour of footage on the free plan, and that 2 GB covers every tape the owner starts. So a second tape gives you more room only when someone else in the group starts it, and developing the first leg brings it down to the size of its film. What counts against your 2 GB.
- A tape per leg. The city part and the beach part, each with its own name on the spine and its own film at the end.
- A tape per car, if the group splits up on the road. Invite whoever's riding in it.
- Several at once. You can keep more than one Active Tape going, so a side trip can have its own without closing the main one.
Develop once you're home
Give it a day or two after you're back. Somebody always finds more clips on the way home, and the stragglers are easier to add now than after the film is made. Then anyone on the tape with an account taps Develop, and everyone who was on the trip gets it in their own Tape Cabinet, with one link for the people who weren't there. What Develop does.
The best first screening is the trip reunion: the same people, one screen, a week later, when the ordinary parts have already started to look like something.
Questions people ask before a trip
How do we make a trip video without anyone editing it?
Start one tape before you leave, invite the group, and have everyone film sideways with REC on, taking turns rather than one person doing it all. Clips from every phone land in the order they were shot, so once you're home, anyone on the tape with an account taps Develop and the trip comes back as one film. Trimming the pocket shots is the only editing anyone has to do.
What should we film on a group trip?
The parts between the postcards: the travel, the place before anyone unpacks, breakfast, the shop run, the view with the sound on, packing up. And ten seconds at the start of each day saying where you are, which is what tells the film which day it is.
How long should a trip film be?
Shorter than the footage. A tape holds up to two hours, but on the free plan the owner's 2 GB, about an hour of footage, usually runs out first, and a film people rewatch is much shorter than either. Trim the dead seconds as you go, and give a long trip one tape per leg, started by different people.
What if we don't have signal?
Keep filming. Clips save to your phone first and upload on their own once a connection comes back, even with the app closed. Nobody stands around waiting for a progress bar.
A friend is on Android. What can they do?
They can't film into the tape: that needs the iPhone app. They can send their videos to someone on the tape, who adds them with +, and they can watch the finished film in any browser on any device, with no app and no account.