There are definitely more forgiving cities than Los Angeles to try to shoot a movie guerilla-style, so that's something else to keep in mind.Īs Baker has said, the idea for this film came a long time before they decided to shoot on the iPhone. If you're thinking of shooting on a small camera to avoid permits, that's one strategy, but the filmmakers had the correct permits, and were allowed to shoot on these locations (though if you're trying not to draw attention to yourself, a small camera like a smartphone is a great way to do that). That's the biggest advantage in my opinion to what they did, is that not only could their camera actually fit into a pocket, but this also let them use super small support gear. There are a number of cameras that can accomplish this task now, but plenty of you out there probably already have an iPhone or similar camera in your pocket. This film, like most movies, could have been shot on any number of cameras that could have fulfilled a similar purpose, but the filmmakers chose a format that allowed them to not only put the cameras anywhere they wanted, but also let them blend into busy city sidewalks and easily shoot inside vehicles. Should You Shoot Your Next Film on the iPhone? The only time a scene was traditionally lit was in the bar, but Cheung simply used the Par Cans that were already hanging overheard, focused them, and gelled them to his liking. “We staged our actors with existing light on locations, to some degree, and I turned those existing lights on and off selectively.”īy being smart about the places they shot, they were able to avoid using traditional lighting for the most part, and not only did this help them shoot faster, but it also made sure that less attention was brought to them when they were shooting on busy public sidewalks that they didn't have the budget to close down. “We had no C-stands, no conventional movie lights,” says Cheung. Bounce material picked up at a 99-Cents Only Store was used occasionally. Lightingįrom ASC magazine, here is a little bit more about the lighting used on the film, which was almost non-existent:įor the 22-day shoot, Cheung brought only three battery-operated Rosco LitePads - 1’x1’, 6”x12” and 3”x12” - “just to be able to fill in and add some eyelight every now and then,” he says. Needing to look at the squeezed 16:9 footage proved a bit difficult for them at first, but they eventually got used to shooting with an incorrect image, and framing their actors in a way that made sense once the image was corrected in post. The anamorphic footage had to be de-squeezed in post (though newer versions of the app can show you de-squeezed footage in-camera). FiLMiC Pro App (this helped lock exposure, focus, white balance, but also gave them better compression).Moondog Labs 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter for iPhone 5s (this gave them around a 2.40:1 aspect ratio from the original 16:9).Here are the tools they utilized to capture the images: Due to the small physical size of the iPhone, they were able to do some camera movements that were amazingly electric and would have been much harder to do with larger cameras - and it gave their characters even more energy at times. The footage reminded me of digital films from the early and mid-200s, but it completely worked for the subject matter. If you can see the film on the big screen, it's absolutely worth it not only because it's both funny and heartbreaking (and just a good film), but because it shows just how far these tools have come. The anamorphic adapter is one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle here, and it certainly helps take the footage to another place compared to regular old mobile video (especially with the lens flares).īy using the FiLMiC Pro app, they were also able to avoid the constantly changing exposure that normally comes with shooting on a phone (though there were times in the film that focus was not locked). By utilizing the iPhone 5s and anamorphic adapters, the Director/co-DP Sean Baker and co-DP Radium Cheung (who was shooting FX's The Americans when he got the call to shoot this film) were able to capture the film in a way that gave them maximum mobility, a unique look, and quite a bit more stealth than if they were using larger cameras.
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