How To Bring In Footage From Your Phone

by Sarah Bellingham

Downloading Footage: If you have a USB cable…

1. Using your USB cable, plug your phone into your computer.
2. On your phone:
   1. “Do you trust this computer?” “Trust”
   2. Input your phone password
3. On your computer, open the Photos app. Here’s how:
   1. Open a Finder window
   2. Type in “Photos”
   3. You may want to select “Name Matches” when that pops up!
   4. Make sure you’re searching in “My Mac”
   5. Double click the Photos app logo
4. In the “Photos” app, look under the “Devices” section on the left hand side. You should see your phone there–click it! Your video should now show up, along with all other photos/videos on your phone.
5. Click on your video (or videos) that you’d like to import. Click “Download selected.”
6. Your video will import into the Photos app.
7. In the “Photos” app, click “Imports” on the left hand side of the screen. Your video should appear.
8. Click on your video to select it.
9. Go to “File” on the upper left hand side of your computer screen. In the dropdown menu, select “Export.”
10. In the window that appears, select “1080p” for “Movie Quality.”
    1. Note: 1080p is the quality of the video. 4K is a higher quality video–but it’s still pretty new, and way above the quality we need! 1080p is industry standard.
11. A window will now appear that lets you decide where to save your video. Select the folder where you plan to save your video.
12. Click “Export.”

Downloading Footage: If you don’t have a USB cable…

1. ON YOUR PHONE: Open the “Photos” app.
2. Open the “Videos” section
3. Click “Select” in the upper right hand corner of the screen, then click your video. A blue checkmark will appear in the lower right hand corner of your video’s thumbnail
4. Click the “Upload” button in the lower left corner of the screen.
5.  Click “Drive” (the Google Drive app)
   1. And we wait…. You’ll see a “Preparing…” notification for a few seconds!
   2. Note: Why not email it to yourself? The file size is probably too large!
   3. Note: Don’t have the Drive app? It’s free to download off the app store!
6. Click “Upload”
   1. And we wait…. Your video is uploading!
7. ON YOUR COMPUTER: Open Google Drive. Your video will show up in both “My Drive” and “Recent”
8. Right click (or hold Control and click) on your video file. Click “Download.”
9. Your video is now in your downloads folder, and is on your computer! Open your downloads folder and drag your footage into your project folder.