Make something from your game videos
plays next to one of {{his}} clips
Everything you put on the film is picked up the same three ways: on the picture (a ring, an arrow, a zone, words, a card), by its mark on the timeline, or by its row in a list (the Drawings list, a clip's card in the Clips tab). Whichever way, it is the same: its mark lights up, its panel opens, and a small bar with its everyday buttons comes up on the picture. Escape, or a {{tap}} on empty picture, puts it down; picking up one thing puts the last one down.
On the timeline: the coloured bars along the top are your saved clips, the thin bars below them your drawings and rings, a ? a question (hollow while it is one Film Room suggested) and a small pill a freeze. {{Tap}} any of them to pick it up — the film goes where you {{tap}}, as it always does. Then drag: a clip's or a drawing's middle moves it in time (a clip slides the whole moment, the same length; drawings made together move together), its ends trim it, and a question or a freeze moves to the frame you leave it on, the film going with it so you see that frame. A ring trims but does not slide: its path is where the player was. Each drag is one ↩ Undo. An end dragged close to something worth lining up with — another clip's or drawing's end, a freeze, a question, the Start and End marks, or where the film was stopped — snaps exactly onto it, and a white line shows where; on a computer, hold Alt (⌥) to place it freely.
The bar by what you picked up, the same buttons as its panel, where the eye already is: for a ring 🎯 Follow, ✎ its name, Behind {{him}}, ▼, ✨, ⏹ Ends here and 🗑; for a drawing ✎, ⏮ Appears here, ⏹ Ends here and 🗑 (💡 on an arrow or zone); for a freeze its seconds, ✨, ◀ ▶ (a frame sooner or later — with ⇧ Shift, half a second), ✎ and 🗑; for a question ◀ ▶, ✎ and 🗑 — and with the film stopped somewhere else, 📍 Move it here and ⤵ back to it; for a clip ✎, ⇤ Starts here, ⇥ Ends here, 🐢 Slow here, ⧉ and 🗑. A clip's ✏️ Edit sheet says when it starts and ends, to change by typing a time, by half a second, or to where the film is stopped.
Taking it back: 🗑, the Delete key or a list's 🗑 deletes what is picked up, and the message says what went, with ↩ Undo — for everything: a drawing, a ring, a freeze, a question, a clip, a voice-over (🗑 Remove in the 🎤 dialog keeps the recording until its Undo has gone, and the dialog offers ↩ Put it back), a board's chips, arrows and words. ↩ Undo in the top bar steps back through every change, one at a time.
What Film Room suggested: the questions it drafts with a reel go with their clip — slid with it, kept inside it when it is trimmed, gone with it when it is deleted — until you move or rewrite one, and then it is yours. 🗑 Remove the suggested questions takes out the ones still as Film Room left them, in one Undo. On the 🎞 Reel tab, drag a clip by its ⠿ (a finger or the mouse) to its place, or use ↑ ↓.
Making room, and getting back: everything that tucks away tucks the same way, and this device remembers how you left it. On a computer, ⇥ at the end of the panel's tabs (or \) tucks the panel to a row of its tabs' icons; ⌄ on the picture's bottom-left edge tucks the play controls down to the timeline (⌃ brings them back — in full screen too); ⌃ on the step bar folds it to one line, the step you are on (✕ puts the steps away). A fold — More on a clip, ⚙︎ Advanced, Tags — opens and shuts with the same ▸, and stays as you left it. Every sheet (🎬 Make…, 🏆 Reel Studio, 📁 Games, this help…) closes with ✕ in its top-right corner, or Esc; its ? sits beside its title.
🎬 Make… asks where it is going: 📱 Instagram · TikTok (tall 9:16, the picture following the ring on {{him}}, the words kept clear of the app's own buttons), 💬 WhatsApp · Messages (720p, small enough to send), ▶️ YouTube (1920 × 1080), 📺 TV (the shape it was filmed in) or 🖼 Instagram feed (4:5). Chosen once, it is remembered, and everything made afterwards is made for it — one moment as well as this week's reel. For 📱 and 🖼 a clip starts at once, with its title over the first two seconds of the play instead of a still card (⭐ Highlights open on the first play; 🧠 Learning keeps its cards). When it is made, the message offers 🖼 Save a cover picture, and for ▶️ YouTube 📋 Copy the chapters — paste them into the video's description and each play is a chapter (YouTube needs three or more, each at least 10 seconds). Most people scroll with the sound off: in the 🎤 dialog, type what you say and it shows as words on the screen while your voice plays, in every video you make.
🧩 Put several videos together… (under the Open button, in 📁 Games, or drop several videos on the window): the quickest way is 🎬 Make the video now — pick ⭐ Highlights, 🧠 Learning or ⭐ + 🧠 Both, and the reel is made straight from the videos, with no film to make or keep first. Videos from a weekend's two games (an hour or more apart) make one reel across both, each clip marked with its game. Or 🧩 Put them together to edit first, which makes the short videos you took at a game into one film, in the order you took them, and drafts this week’s reel from it. Choose ⭐ Highlights — each video trimmed to the moment its sound jumps (a cheer, a whistle), the biggest first — or 🧠 Learning — every play whole, a title card before each and a question just before the moment that matters. Stretches where the phone was in a pocket or swinging are left out of the reel, never out of the film. Then it is yours: ▶ Play it through on the Reel tab plays it the way the video will run; to take something out, press Start clip here and End clip here around it and then ✂ Cut from this week’s reel; draw, write comments with 🔤 Text and add questions as on any game; and 🎬 Make one video when it is right. Press 📥 Put the film on this device so you can open it again another day.
On an iPhone or iPad, after ✓: the Photos picker gets each video ready before Film Room sees it — the phone’s own “High Efficiency” videos are made over into another format first, and all that shows is a small circle filling on one of them. For a lot of video that can take minutes. Leave it open. To skip the wait, tap ⋯ in the picker before you tap ✓, then Options → Format → Current: the videos come through as they are, much sooner, and the phone remembers the choice for next time.
| Space or K | Play / pause |
| ← / → | Move one single picture at a time (with ⇧, a second) |
| J / L | Back / forward 5 seconds |
| I / O | Start clip here / End clip here |
| Enter | Save the marked moment as a clip |
| M | ⚡ Save moment — six seconds before the moment you are on and three after, no dialog (↩ Undo takes it back) |
| , / . | Jump to the saved moment before / after this one |
| 1–6 | Tools: Select, Spotlight, Arrow, Zone, Pen, Text |
| [ / ] | Slower / faster playback |
| Delete | Delete what is picked up — a drawing, a ring, a freeze, a question or a clip (the message says which, with ↩ Undo) |
| ⌥/Alt + arrows | Nudge the selected drawing (add ⇧ for bigger steps) |
| ⌥/Alt while dragging on the timeline | Place it freely — without it, an end snaps onto a nearby clip, drawing, freeze or question, or where the film was stopped |
| Esc | Put down what is picked up — a drawing, a ring, a freeze, a question or a clip |
| < / > | Move what is picked up a frame sooner / later — a clip, a drawing, a freeze or a question (a ring follows the player and does not slide) |
| \ | Tuck the panel on the right away, or bring it back (on a computer it tucks to a slim row of its tabs’ icons — any of them brings it back; the ⇥ at the end of its tabs does the same) |
| ⌘Z / Ctrl Z | Undo — or press ↩ Undo in the top bar, which is the way back on a phone or iPad with no keyboard (it is also on the tool rail when the phone is sideways) |
| ⌘⇧Z / Ctrl Y | Redo — step forward again through what Undo took back |
| ⌘K / Ctrl K | Do anything by typing a few letters of it — “make”, “board”, a clip’s name… |
| F | ⛶ Full screen, and back — in a project’s ④ Preview too |
| Pinch the trackpad, or Ctrl + the mouse wheel | Zoom into the players, about where you point — then scroll with two fingers to move around, and 1× for the whole picture again |
| ? | This help |
🎯 Follow {{him}} from here: put a spotlight on {{him}} and press it — nothing to set up first. The ring follows {{him}} on its own from that moment until it loses {{him}}, and you can still drag it anywhere it is not quite right (Esc stops it). If it says it lost {{him}} — players crossing, camera whip — drag the ring back onto {{him}} at that moment and press Follow again from there; the two runs join up. Where two players in the same colours crossed, it cannot tell from the picture which one is {{him}}, so it marks the moment with a ◆ on the timeline and asks you: press ◆ Check them now on its message (or a ◆, or ◆ Check the crossings on the ring). Each crossing replays at half speed and stops just after they part: ✓ Yes if the ring is still on {{him}}, or 👆 No and tap {{him}} — the ring jumps there and follows {{him}} on from that moment. Skip leaves the ◆ for later. ⏪ Where {{he}} came from works backwards: put the ring on {{him}} at the moment that matters and it shows the run {{he}} made before the ball arrived. Sideways on a phone, 🎯 on the tool rail is the same button.
By hand: move forward a second or two and, with the spotlight picked, drag it to where {{he}} is now (or press 📍 Pin {{him}} here). The ring glides between the points you set, so three or four of them usually covers a whole play. Either way, give it {{his}} name and a color — and spotlight a defender or teammate in another color to show the relationship.
Everything autosaves in this browser per video file (matched by file name + size), so reopening the same file restores your clips and drawings. 💾 Save this game’s work (under ⋯ More) downloads a backup file you can move between machines or keep with the video; 📂 Open saved work brings it back. 🗄 Back up everything does the same for every game at once — plus the player card, the season reel plan, your tags and your voice-overs — in one file, and ♻ Restore a backup brings that file back on this device or a new one without replacing anything newer. The videos themselves are never in these files.
An old game you no longer need? The first screen and 📁 Games list the games you have worked on, and each has a 🗑 at the end of its row. It deletes that game’s clips, drawings, reels and sessions from this device only — the videos themselves, in Photos or anywhere else, are never touched. Nothing asks “are you sure?”: the message has ↩ Undo, which puts it all back, and it says when the game was not in your last backup. The game open now has no 🗑.
Working on more than one computer? When you open a game from 📁 Games, Film Room also saves your work into that folder, right next to the video. Keep the folder in iCloud Drive, OneDrive or Google Drive and the same game opened on another computer picks up your clips and drawings automatically — you'll see ☁︎ Saving to your Games folder in the top bar when it's on. If two computers have both been used, whichever was saved most recently wins. Nothing is uploaded anywhere: it is your folder, syncing the way it always did.
🎬 Make… turns a saved clip into a video file with every drawing burned in, big enough to look right on a large TV. It opens with a title card — the clip's name, whether it is a strength or a work-on, and your coaching note — and any question you added inside the clip becomes a built-in pause showing that question before the play continues. That is what makes a clip teach on its own when someone else is watching it with {{him}}, or when {{he}} watches alone. The game sound comes along too. AirDrop or send the file to a phone or tablet and play it on the TV. 📸 Photo saves the frame you are on as a picture — the fastest way to text {{him}} one teaching image.
The ✎ Fill in {{his}} card button on the Reel tab holds {{his}} name, number, grad year, positions, club and how a coach can reach you. It is filled in once and printed on every reel's opening card, the season reel and the sharing kit. It is also where you say whether Film Room talks about a son or a daughter (the front door asks the first time) — every “{{he}}” and “{{his}}” in the app follows it, and your own notes are never changed.
Press ➕ Reel on the clips you want this week, or let ✨ Draft {{his}} reel on the Reel tab line them up — it only drafts; nothing is made until you say. An empty list on a game with clips offers ➕ Your clips (strengths first) in one tap. Choose how the video runs: ⭐ Highlights (back to back, for family) or 🧠 Learning (a title card and {{his}} question before each play, for watching together) — each keeps its own list. ▶ Play it through plays the list the way the video will run; 🎓 Watch together goes through it with {{him}} here; 🎬 Make one video (or Make both videos) makes the file for the TV.
Slow motion in the video. A ⭐ Highlights video replays its best moment at half speed after it (🐢 Slow-mo replay in the Shape row turns that off). And any clip can slow its own key moment wherever it is used: stop the video on the moment and press 🐢 Slow here under the clip's More — or switch on 🐢 Slow down the key moment in its ✏️ Edit dialog. A second before to a second and a half after plays at half speed, marked ½ SPEED, in every video made of that clip.
Under ⋯ More. {{His}} season reel is a project like any other: ③ Build holds the moments in order — ✨ Draft it from {{his}} season starts one from {{his}} strengths across every game, and + Moments from your games adds any other — and ④ Preview shows the whole video before Export video makes it. A plan you had in Reel Studio comes in as the 🎯 Recruiting version, its trims kept; a 📱 Social version makes the tall cut. With a Games folder connected, ② Moments → 🔎 Scan every new game goes through every film that has no moments yet, one after another — you {{tap}} {{him}} once in each.
Sharing it, in ④ Preview of a 🎯 Recruiting version: ✉ The email to a coach, written in your name from {{his}} player card (copy it, or open it in your mail app), and ✉️ Save the sharing kit — YouTube words whose chapter times match this video, the email, and {{his}} one-page player site, in one zip. The YouTube description never carries {{his}} GPA or your email; the email and the player page carry how to reach you only when How to reach you is ticked for that version. 📋 Season data, for another program saves the season as words and numbers (never a picture), and 📥 Load a reel plan brings a plan another program wrote back as a new version, for you to look over.
Before it is made, ④ Preview of a 🎯 Recruiting version also says what to look at, moment by moment: one too short for a coach to see the build-up, or too long; two that show the same stretch of a game; a line on the picture too long to read; a ring that crossed someone in the same colours and was not checked; a video longer than coaches watch — each with Show, which takes you to that moment in ③ Build. Under it, What coaches look for lists what a coach looks for at each position {{he}} played in this version, ticked where a moment already shows it. In ③ Build each moment of a 🎯 version can leave out the ring (🎯 The ring on {{him}}) or its short freeze (⏸ A freeze first). The tall cut for social media is a 📱 Social version (⧉ Another version…, started from the 🎯 one): its own moments, order, trims and captions, and {{his}} handle in the corner only when 🎽 The player’s name is ticked for it.
Open ⏱ Mark plays at the game on the first screen (or ⋯ More → ⏱ Game Day) at the game. Press ▶ Kick-off when each half starts, then the big MARK THAT PLAY right after anything worth seeing — and ⭐ A highlight or 🧠 One to teach on the last mark if you like. Nothing is filmed here: the video is your phone’s own, a Trace or a Veo. Every mark is kept the moment it is pressed, with no signal needed.
Afterwards, open the video of that game. Film Room offers to line the marks up: find each half’s kick-off in the video once, check one marked play, and nudge it if it is a second or five out — every mark in that half moves with it. The marks become moments with the build-up before each.
Under ⋯ More. How {{his}} season is going, from the clips you rated: strengths against work-ons game by game, the labels that come up most, where {{he}} played, and what {{he}} said in your sessions — the same question answered weeks apart. It shows one season at a time (August to July); filter by position or size of game, or save it as a spreadsheet.
Upright, Start clip here · End clip here · + Save clip have their own row under the play controls, one speed button slows the film a step at a time, and messages appear at the top. Turned sideways, the film takes the screen: the drawing tools ride a rail on the right (🎯 Follow, ↩ Undo, 🧰 the full panel, ⋯ the top bar, 🎓 Watch together), and pinching zooms into the players. ⛶ Full screen (the corner of the picture, or F on a keyboard) does the same any way up, on a phone, an iPad or a computer: the picture fills the screen and every control is still there — the tools down the side, 🧰 for the whole panel, the timeline and clip buttons along the bottom. While the film plays they fade, and a tap brings them back; stopped, ⌄ tucks them down to the timeline so the bottom of the picture is clear to draw on. ✕ or Esc comes back. On an iPhone, Safari keeps its own bars on screen for any web page — turned sideways they all but vanish, and added to the Home Screen (Share, then Add to Home Screen) Film Room opens with none at all. 📲 Save to Photos appears when a video is made — in the sheet it opens, choose Save Video. On an Android phone the buttons are ⬇ Save to this phone (into Downloads) and 📤 Send…. 🎬 Make… right after + Save clip offers that clip — ▶ This moment as a video.
⚖ on any clip plays it next to an example — another one of {{his}} clips, or a video from this computer (📂 in the bar at the top). Both sides slow down and step together, the pair repeats, and the align buttons shift the example a little so the two moments happen at the same time. 📸 saves both sides as one labelled picture.
🗒 Board (under ⋯ More) swaps to a top-down pitch with both teams in formation — drag the chips, double-click to name them, and draw with the same tools to teach shape and runs off-video. Each clip's 🗒 button opens a board linked to that moment. 📸 Photo of this board saves it as a picture.
The tag list is a starting point. In the Save-clip dialog hit ✎ Edit tag list to rename any tag to the words {{his}} coach uses, remove ones you don't use, or add your own — renames update clips you've already saved, in every game (your other games take the new name when they are next opened).
On far-away sideline or Trace-camera film the players are small. Follow measures how big {{he}} really is and pulls the ring in to fit {{him}} on its own; if you want to adjust it yourself, select the spotlight and use 🔽 Smaller ring / 🔼 Bigger ring. The ring's shape follows the camera: a phone at the side of the pitch sees the grass flat, a Trace camera or a tripod up high a little rounder, a drone rounder still. With the ring picked up, press From the side, From up high or From above (or Flatter / Rounder), or drag the small knob above the ring up or down; the grip on its right edge makes it bigger or smaller. Every ring in the game takes the shape, and the next one you put down starts with it. For the best fit, stop where the centre circle is in the picture and press 📐 Match the pitch: drag the outline onto the painted circle and press ✓ Done, and every ring lies on the grass the way the pitch does — flatter as {{he}} runs away from the camera, rounder as {{he}} comes close. A ring that 🎯 Follow has run on also grows as {{he}} comes towards the camera and shrinks as {{he}} runs away, because Follow measures how tall {{he}} is all the way. Behind {{him}}: the far side of a new ring passes behind {{his}} legs, as if it were painted on the grass — the app tells {{him}} from the grass by its colour, so {{his}} shadow and the pitch lines stay under the ring. Where it cannot (a pitch that is not grass, a picture too dark), the ring is drawn on top of {{him}} as before and the ring's panel says so. The Behind {{him}} chip turns it off for one ring. Look: a far-away player's ring is tiny on a phone, so a small ring gets a ▼ over {{his}} head by itself, and ⬤ Bold makes a thick, solid ring for the tall video or a TV; the next ring you put down keeps the look you picked. The bar by a picked-up ring has ▼ Pointer to put the ▼ on or take it off, and ✨ Light {{him}} up to stop the film right there with {{him}} lit up. It copes with the picture getting brighter and darker, and with another player crossing in front for a moment (the little tracking sign says sure or unsure as it runs; where it was unsure, ◆ and ▲ on the timeline say where to look afterwards).
Opened from the web, Film Room counts which buttons get pressed — a game opened, a clip saved, Follow used, a reel made — and what kind of device you are on. That is the whole list, and it is the only reason the app talks to the network at all.
It never sends your film, a single frame of it, {{his}} name, a clip title, a note, or anything else you have typed. It has no way to: the only address it can reach is its own, and the only things that fit through are numbers and a short list of fixed words. Opened by double-clicking the file on your own computer, it sends nothing whatsoever, and if your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track it counts nothing, whatever the switch below says.
Film Room is one of the PitchDreams tools for parents — pitchdreams.com. This is build v11.33 (), and Film Room is still a beta: it is new, so things may still change. Tell us what works and what does not at support@pitchdreams.com — it opens your own mail app, and nothing is sent until you send it. Your footage never leaves this device: the only address the app can reach is its own, the only thing it sends there is the counting above, and when it is hosted the browser is told to enforce exactly that.