CONTINUE — 3-Second Video Chains

Continue someone else’s three-second clip and turn moments from around the world into one collaborative film.

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CONTINUE

Three seconds. One shared story.

CONTINUE is a collaborative mobile video app where every three-second clip becomes an invitation for someone else to film what happens next.

Instead of posting an isolated short video, a creator selects a predecessor, watches it first, and inherits its actual final frame as a translucent camera guide. CONTINUE samples the live camera and reference frame through a privacy-aware SYNC service, gives honest spatial-alignment guidance, and records the creator’s next three seconds.

How it works

  1. Discover a Private, Local, or Global chain.
  2. Select a published clip to continue.
  3. Match its real final frame with the camera guide and SYNC score.
  4. Hold once to record exactly three seconds.
  5. Review the predecessor and new capture, choose visibility, and publish.
  6. CONTINUE renders the sources into one MP4 and keeps the same film for Connected playback, Library, and native sharing.

A normal handoff joins two clips. The non-destructive Library editor can combine up to forty local three-second sources into a film of up to two minutes.

RevenueCat monetization

The creation loop is useful before purchase: people can discover a film, align a handoff, record three seconds, and understand the collaborative idea.

continue Pro is the paid creator layer. RevenueCat powers the Current continue_pro Offering, store-localized monthly, yearly, and lifetime products, native Paywalls, entitlement refresh, restore purchases, and Customer Center. Pro unlocks advanced matching and creator controls such as premium transitions, 1080p export, AI boundary tools, and object continuity. The release plan uses a store-managed seven-day trial for judge and new-creator access; a local demo flag does not count as a purchase.

The app trusts active RevenueCat CustomerInfo for access and fails closed in production when RevenueCat is unavailable. The no-charge sandbox is limited to development and internal demos.

Privacy and integrity

Sampled SYNC images are analyzed in transit and are not stored. Private compositions remain unlisted and do not enter Local/Global feeds or public connection totals. Public counts come from the live API; the UI shows loading, retry, or unavailable states instead of inventing social proof.

Built with

Expo, React Native, TypeScript, RevenueCat Purchases, RevenueCat Paywalls, Expo Camera, Expo Video, Python, Pillow, FFmpeg, Playwright, and Vitest.

Challenges

The hardest part was making the connection real rather than cosmetic. The selected predecessor must play first, its final frame must guide the next camera, SYNC must reject framing mismatches, and the published result must be an actual rendered MP4 rather than two UI cards that only look connected.

We also separated development monetization from release monetization: public SDK keys can ship, secret keys cannot; a Test Store key is rejected in production; restored entitlements update access; and deferred consumable Credits stay hidden until their authenticated spending and legal model is ready.

Accomplishments

  • Exact three-second capture and two-source connected rendering.
  • Up to forty sources and two-minute server compositions.
  • Real final-frame camera guidance and calibrated SYNC bands.
  • Private / Local / Global Library scopes with interactive sorting and filtering.
  • RevenueCat Offering, Paywall, restore, Customer Center, and entitlement boundary.
  • Native camera and share paths for iOS and Android.

What we learned

A believable collaborative film depends on continuity, not only upload success. Matching has to be spatially honest, playback has to use the same rendered artifact that gets shared, and monetization has to preserve the free creative loop while charging for repeat creator value.

What’s next

After launch, we will measure the discover → continue → publish funnel, trial starts, RevenueCat conversion, completed handoffs, and returning creators. We will use real launch data to refine the annual plan, onboarding, and chain discovery without fabricating traction.

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