Santa In Your Pocket

Just for kicks, I decided to test out the Kringl app to see if I could provide evidence to my 5-year old daughter that Santa Claus really did visit our home and drop off a present for her on Christmas Eve. Basically the app lets you record a short video of your own home, and it superimposes a video of Santa so that it looks like Santa had actually visited your home. There is some general information on the Kringl web site about features and functions, but here are a few tips that you might not have learned from their official site:

• For best results, you should not hand-hold your device; rather, try to mount it on a tripod or at least stabilize it by putting one edge of your device against a fixed object (eg, a table or chair) to prevent camera shake
• While the app lets you choose the brightness of the Santa image that is superimposed on your video, a dimly lit room will most closely match the available lighting options
• If you choose to save videos to your iOS device, the resolution of the video will be 1280x720; while it is technically high definition, full HD (1920x1080) would have been nicer

I recorded several scenes and then used Final Cut Pro X to stitch them together and add a title and transitions. The final result is here. Happy holidays!