Apple shares new ‘Vertical Cinema’ Shot on iPhone short film

G

groveChuck

U-matic Member
"Apple today shared a new short film that was entirely shot on the iPhone. However, unlike other clips that the company has already promoted, this one was recorded vertically.

According to Apple, the 9-minute short film “The Stunt Double” was filmed by Academy Award-winning director Damien Chazelle using an iPhone 11 Pro.

A journey through cinema history is reimagined for the vertical screen in Damien Chazelle’s “The Stunt Double,” a short film Shot on iPhone 11 Pro. Watch as classic genres are flipped on their side, from action movies to silent films, spy flicks to westerns, reframing and modernizing the movie magic we know and love."


Cinemascope it ain't. Though I guess if it was even narrower than a phone screen, it would be vertical Cinemascope- super narrow?

https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/05/apple-shares-new-vertical-cinema-shot-on-iphone-short-

A 9min short, and a BTS:



 
If this catches on, what am I supposed to do with all of my horizontal lenses? I've submitted a patent application for a vertical anamorphic lens.

I can't wait for vertical IMAX.
 
I continue to weep for... The World.

I forced myself to watch 30 seconds. Now I have to go squirt hand sanitizer in my eyes and bang my head against the wall to hopefully forget that this was done ON PURPOSE by people that know better. This was proof that vertical video SUCKS DONKEY C*** no matter who shoots or directs it.
 
I made it 2 minutes into the video.

I think the shots are very well-composed. And the concept worked, I was curious about his experience and where it was going.

But it makes me feel so claustrophobic to have such a narrow frame to look in. This is not how we see the world.

DLD is right that portraits are often, well, portrait-orientation.

But storytelling is rooted in landscapes and group activity

The Last Supper:

Young-Leonardo-Last-Supper-Canvas-Painting.jpg
 
I have an FB "friend" (actually barely an acquaintance), who worked for the Soviet/post-Soviet TV in the 60's-90's as an on-air talent. She's in her 70's now and is living in Manhattan. A few months ago, she posted a short clip of Manhattan's street life that was shot vertically on her mobile phone. I told her, "Since you're shooting action that's in front of you and not the skyscrapers, don't use the vertical framing". She sort of listened to me in her followup replies. Last week, she posts a clip of her pooch running around in her apartment. It's a cute little doggie. But he was constantly running out of the frame because, once again, she was in the vertical and the dog was, apparently, not named Lionel Richie and subsequently not dancing on the ceiling.
 
I skipped through it and besides the obvious "this was a high budgeted production to make an absurd way of shooting somehow attractive" there is a nice "real" moment to be found in the MakinOf
That moment when the director says: Lean back a hair! hmm, a hair. Yeah, that's great.
Actors will be thrilled to move "a hair" - a literal hair - in a full body shot...
I guess this also means a lot more work in the gym for actors - well cardio only - to fit in the frame of the next iPhone production.........
 
So where I'm at now, we have a whole digital team doing all this web based stuff. Organic content, photos, videos and so on. Some months back they were doing an online project for a beverage company with 20 somethings gathered around an ice bucket filled with this tasty beverage. I noticed that they were shooting vertical and you couldn't actually see all the people enjoying the tasty beverage. Just an arm or two. So I suggest that if they turn the phone to a horizontal position the shot would reveal the enjoyment on their faces and actually show the tasty beverage. The entire group kind of squints their eyes and almost in unison cocks their heads. I then say... You do know you can turn your phone to the horizontal position to watch a video, right? Again almost in unison... What? As I walked off I could hear one of them chuckle.... he's old.
 
We're living in the era of 8K and 12K affordable and capable cameras. Aren't mobile phone cameras on the same path (I have not kept up with it because I don't care about
cameras in phones), but aren't some of the highest end mobile phone cameras shooting 8K and I am sure soon to be 12K? Why in the hell do we have insane overkill raster size and resolution
if people are going to shoot vertically? Why wouldn't the people who think that 8K and 12K are a good idea just shoot everything normally and extract their lame vertical video from the insanely large horizontal raster?!?

Makes zero sense but our entire business has been one step forward and two steps backward for the past few years, why stop that now?
 
As usual on dvxuser, when techies get together, all they demonstrate is why their area of expertise is in the technical field with zero understanding of art - great directors rarely come from DPs (although Lord knows, so many tryyyy), and it's for a reason :) Kidding, kidding :)

Joking aside, it's amusing to see all this outrage with so little self awareness :)

Yes, vertical shooting is a pain on the eye - it's not natural, and it's a subpar experience. That said, it has its place the same way excessive shaky cam has its place - a gimmick that has some narrow uses, mimicking action in the moment etc.; vertical has a very "home movie" feel, so perhaps found footage movies can use it, or maybe a horror movie premise where the fact that you can't see to the sides is part of the tension. It's a tool, like any other.

What's funny is how folks are all talking with outrage about vertical shooting, how "it's not how humans see" and then unselfconsciously praise and salivate over anamorphic aspect ratios, super wide and so on - LOL!!! The human eye perception doesn't have a single "aspect ratio", and if anything the closest is something like 4:3, or even the Academy ratio. 2.35:1 is just as unnatural to the human eye as vertical is. So you can take your anamorphic lenses and stick them where the sun don't shine... except I'd never say such a thing, because again, it's a tool and it opens compositional possibilities you don't get with 4:3. Anamorphic has its place as does vertical as does shaky cam, and not one of these three is "natural" to the human eye. They are all conventions. Oh, and while it is painful to watch vertical, I am not a fan of super wide - have you sat in one of those practically wrap-around screen places where you have to keep moving your head just to see what's going on? That's just as much a hell as is vertical. So get off your high horse. You are no better than the vertical guys, just in a different abomination bucket. One day we'll see movies projected directly onto our retinas - I guarantee you it won't be anamorphic.

Before one gets too excited about the crimes of vertical one can ask oneself the fundamental question - who gets asked to direct? The techie, or someone whose focus is on the total experience for the audience? Food for thought. Stop looking at everything through such a narrow technical lens - boy have I made a few puns here, totally intended :) :) :)
 
OldCorpse said:
As usual on dvxuser, when techies get together, all they demonstrate is why their area of expertise is in the technical field with zero understanding of art - great directors rarely come from DPs (although Lord knows, so many tryyyy), and it's for a reason :) Kidding, kidding :)

Joking aside, it's amusing to see all this outrage with so little self awareness :)

Yes, vertical shooting is a pain on the eye - it's not natural, and it's a subpar experience. That said, it has its place the same way excessive shaky cam has its place - a gimmick that has some narrow uses, mimicking action in the moment etc.; vertical has a very "home movie" feel, so perhaps found footage movies can use it, or maybe a horror movie premise where the fact that you can't see to the sides is part of the tension. It's a tool, like any other.
Click to expand...

The problem is that vertical video is not a creative choice. It's a limitation imposed by audience smartphone habits.

Sure, you have to give the audience what they want. But how hard is it to turn your phone?

And this is not just a DP thing. I've seen talk show hosts and laypeople complain about amateur news footage shot vertically for the same reason - it's missing the action on the sides.

Humans don't see 2.35:1 per se, but we have eyes side-by-side and our area of social focus is horizontal - people's faces are lateral and roughly at the same height when congregating.

The fact is that there are certain framings that work well or better vertically. But more often they don't.

And just as a viewer (yes, DPs never lose their basic entertainment value of watching movies/TV), I hate seeing these square and vertical ads for shows where an actor's face or body fills the frame in every shot. There's a severe lack of environment.
 
ahalpert said:
The problem is that vertical video is not a creative choice. It's a limitation imposed by audience smartphone habits.

Sure, you have to give the audience what they want. But how hard is it to turn your phone?

And this is not just a DP thing. I've seen talk show hosts and laypeople complain about amateur news footage shot vertically for the same reason - it's missing the action on the sides.

Humans don't see 2.35:1 per se, but we have eyes side-by-side and our area of social focus is horizontal - people's faces are lateral and roughly at the same height when congregating.

The fact is that there are certain framings that work well or better vertically. But more often they don't.

And just as a viewer (yes, DPs never lose their basic entertainment value of watching movies/TV), I hate seeing these square and vertical ads for shows where an actor's face or body fills the frame in every shot. There's a severe lack of environment.
Click to expand...

You’re kinda illustrating my point with this reply :)

Because, yes, yes indeed, it can be a creative choice. Just because it originated in amateur or even “incompetent” users doesn’t negate that... what do you think shaky cam originated in, not in productions that could afford dolly tracks and dollies and good tripods and good stedicams and so on. Shaky footage was seen as a FLAW and mark of incompetence... until it became an artistic choice. Grain... it originated in cheap stock, poor or excessive blow up of 8/16mm, poor development and insufficient lighting, it was seen as a BAD thing, and then it became a creative choice where people actually add it in. How do you think cinema verite started? Your focus on what’s “technically correct” vs “legitimate” creative choice, illustrates what I said - you’re looking at things too narrowly - and in fact ahistorically and not accurately. You’re a techie.

Now, can vertical be done badly and all kinds of people complain - well OF COURSE. So can unstable footage and grainy footage and a million other flaws - because that’s what happens when they’re used *without* creative intent. But when used with intent, they become tools, sometimes even whole genres and movements like Cinema Verite, and “found footage”. It’s like in music, where amateur and unpolished and limited were all terrible amateur flaws... until it became a whole genre like punk and a whole ethos and a whole way of making music and producing albums. In the early days of punk, you’d be the guy complaining about lack of clean sound and missed notes and poor musicianship. You’d miss the point. And you’re missing the point here. Because, demonstrably, it was a creative choice in the case of the very film that started this thread - intentionally using vertical.

And no, 2.35:1 is not in any way how “humans see” - yes, we have eyes next to each other, but not on the sides of our heads like cows. Sorry, it’s just a convention, exactly like vertical is a convention. Now, I think that vertical is a very limited tool, I doubt it’ll give rise to a whole movement (though I could be wrong!), but it’s no more or less of a convention than is anamorphic.

Look, it’s all a creative choice - 2.35:1 included. Art is bigger than a technical specification.
 
They made this short film to sell phones. I don't think the director woke up one day with an idea for a vertical film.

If this is the best one can do in a vertical format...I'm not impressed.

Will other things be made vertically that I WILL enjoy? Perhaps. Probably.

Shaky camera is a bad example because you're referencing the filming technique. Vertical video is a spec designed around viewing format.

Vertical video specifically contributes to the viewing experience by filling the screen of a phone being held portrait-orientation. That is its only advantage.

This is not some new capability. People have experimented with aspect ratios forever and guess what - no one chose 9:16!

The comparison to shaky cam is sound if you consider shaky cam to say something about the POV of the camera (eg a scared person or a running person). Vertical video could be useful as smartphone POV in an otherwise widescreen film.

Sure - there could be interesting uses for vertical video like you mentioned - a lack of peripheral vision in a horror film.

But EVERY genre will get shot vertically because it's going on a phone not due to artistic inspiration.

Even worse - I recently shot a webisode that was 9:16, protect 16:9. That creates a massive compromise in both formats.

Essentially, we're making worse art so it can be enjoyed more lazily.

And re: 2.35:1 - we pan our heads to capture more info and mentally blend it together. And actually, with peripheral vision I can see almost 180 degrees in front of me.

Plus it's just a pretty aspect ratio. And well-suited to landscapes and ensemble scenes, which happen a lot in cinema.
 
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Intention doesn't mean squat. I can go shoot something and bring it back and everyone can say it looks like crap and just because I say "I meant to do that and it looks exactly how I wanted it to", doesn't magically make it OK, good or "art"(outside of my mind). And I don't think anyone is really arguing this from a technical point of view.

I did some research a wile back and based on the info that I found, Human vision translated to an aspect ratio is a tick little wider than 4:3., but it actually seems wider to us, because we're constantly(subconsciously?) scanning our vision to the left and right.
 
I don't mind vertical, it is when they try to shoot both at the same time where it seems to get in the way.
 
Run&Gun said:
Intention doesn't mean squat. I can go shoot something and bring it back and everyone can say it looks like crap and just because I say "I meant to do that and it looks exactly how I wanted it to", doesn't magically make it OK, good or "art"(outside of my mind). And I don't think anyone is really arguing this from a technical point of view.

I did some research a wile back and based on the info that I found, Human vision translated to an aspect ratio is a tick little wider than 4:3., but it actually seems wider to us, because we're constantly(subconsciously?) scanning our vision to the left and right.
Click to expand...

Of course intention doesn't mean squat. Neither does origin ("Vertical video is a spec designed around viewing format" - uhm, so what?), what matters is the ultimate effect on the audience as Run&Gun says. So, Run&Gun is again, perhaps unintentioanally proving my point. NOTHING matters - not spec., not intention, not anything other than ultimate effect on the audience. This short didn't do it for you. Fine. But that does NOT mean the tool, or artistic technique is therefore bad in and of itself. "Dirty sound" production is a tool - it can be a flaw, or it can be art (punk). It all depends on the ultimate effect. This short is not proof that vertical is BAD, it's proof that it didn't work for some audiences - but as I suggested, perhaps in a horror movie that takes advantage of that it might work splendidly, just as shaky cam, grainy footage or dirty sound in punk - it might work brilliantly. It's just a tool. A tool is neither good nor bad. It's in how it's used and that is judged by its ultimate effect on the audience. Not every tool is good in every circumstance. A film like "coffin" or "phone booth" or some intimate one room drama or some comedy might not gain by being shot in anamorphic - every tool has its place. And again, like I said before, indeed, there is no single "aspect ratio" that's fullly reflective of how humans see - including 2.35:1 or vertical or 4:3 or whatnot, therefore that's a poor argument against vertical. It's a tool - useful in some situations, not in others - get over it... it's the audience who will be the ultimate judges.
 
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