Google Acquires Directr, An App For Shooting Short Films On Your Phone

Directr, an app that we’ve covered a few times since its launch back in 2012, has just been snatched up by Google.

In an age of ultra-brief videos, Directr existed to help users and businesses shoot videos that were a bit longer than your average Vine — think ads, or promo clips, or family holiday videos.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but the pieces fit together like that of a smaller purchase/acquihire: the Directr product will live on (now free) under its own branding, but the team behind it is joining YouTube’s video ad team.

Directr’s approach was clever: to encourage users to shoot better video, Directr would provide templates (or “storyboards”) that explained how a scene might best be framed/shot. The user would just fill in the blanks with their own clips, and Directr would piece it together, add music, and prep everything to be shared across your myriad Facebooks and Twitters.

Directr came in two forms: one for personal use, and one for business. The former focused on videos you might shoot to share with friends (travel videos, family holiday gatherings, etc), while the latter focused on teaching companies to shoot things like testimonials, product demos, etc.

The personal edition was free but downloading a finished video cost 99 cents; the business version cost $250-$500 a year, depending on what features you needed.

Directr had raised around $1.7M to date