"Game Changer" Steven Soderbergh shot his latest movie entirely on the iPhone

filmguy123 said:
It doesn’t look good camera wise... I believe it was shot on an iPhone.

The takeaway for me, rather, was how much I didn’t care. How interesting it is to watch regardless. 10x more gripping than the abundant YouTube videos of pretty shots with no substance.

A reminder for all of us that what we need gear wise we likely already have. And the most interesting things to watch don’t reflect the tools they were made with, but the one using the tools.

By the way Thomas, FilmicPro helps with a lot of what you mentioned on iPhone! But I agree 100% - everything I’ve ever seen that was shot on iPhone with professional results was kitted out with tons of crew and lights and support gear.

Then again, I guess that’s the point - it’s the other stuff that matters more!
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I agree. It’s a lesson in priority. Light, movement, angles and just great frames deliver every time. Soderberg has always embraced unavoidable nasties in frame as in the green glow of flourescents in the warehouse scene in The Limey, or operating handheld on a western dolly in a period piece, the Knick, where you’d expect pristine camera movement, tiny crew and available light in The Girlfriend experience. His willingness to be less precious about these things has been a liberating influence for me. I think of it as more of the same good stuff by a guy who enjoys stretching boundaries.

Plus, I just love how well British actors do American accents!
 
Sure, shoot your feature film on a cellphone.

But you still need a DoP who is expert at framing, camera movement, and lighting (and that lighting truck will cost you hundreds per day).

Likewise you'll still need an experienced sound mixer with tens and tens of thousands of dollars of sound gear with you on set.
 
IronFilm said:
Sure, shoot your feature film on a cellphone.

But you still need a DoP who is expert at framing, camera movement, and lighting (and that lighting truck will cost you hundreds per day).

Likewise you'll still need an experienced sound mixer with tens and tens of thousands of dollars of sound gear with you on set.
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Luckily, these are the only things that will allow many of us to stay in the business. The democratization is basically done as far as camera gear. But good lighting still costs, although it is falling in cost, good sound gear still costs something (I am taking a look at the latest Ktek beginner boom support package that costs less than $400.00!) but the new SD low cost recorders are amazing. And of course, where the rubber hits the road, knowledge and skills are still valuable, although they too are being commodotized. It still takes skill to create great TV and video. But the cost of entry as far as gear is ridiculous, it has become so cheap. Overall, I think it's a good thing although it is more difficult to make a living in our business because of it. I still get hired because I own a nice C200 package but someone with my same skillset could end up with a product that is the same or better, shooting with a GH5S that costs a third as much. That person with the GH5S could easily undermine my rates because they don't have nearly as much gear to pay off. And a person with the same skill set with an iPhone 8 could undermine the person with the GH5S. And so on.

We live in interesting times, that's for sure. I just took delivery of my new iPhone 8 Plus, Crane M, Moment lenses, etc. Not going to replace my C200 but will be useful for b-roll, travel or as a second roaming camera when shooting with the C200. Gotta change with the times and for me, that doesn't mean buying a RED or Alexa LF, it means smaller, simpler, cheaper but still good enough for the majority of my clients and projects. I make documentaries and an iPhone 8 is a tool for getting footage I could never shoot with my C200. While it's cheap, it could turn out to be incredibly important to both of the subjects in my film because they can open up to me casually shooting with my phone in a way that they cannot with me shooting with my fully rigged out C200. I can follow them as they walk through a grocery store or shoot an impromptu interview in a mall or in their car. Even though it's small, the C200 still makes you stick out as a filmmaker while an iPhone doesnt.
 
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People are talking about what you need in terms of lighting, composition, etc. You also need production design, acting, and writing.
 
Whom would benefit the most, that a vey respectable Hollywood director shoots an entire PROPER Hollywood Movie with an iPhone, just when it will be released?

There you have it.

Soderbergh himself has stated in public gatherings over and over that the Marketing costs for any movie STARTS at $30M. And an advert or a PR campaign for a worldwide company doesn't costs less either.


So Apple handles Sodebergh say $10M to shoot a movie with an iPhone, and then have the press and the TV all over the planet to make the advertising for both things for FREE.


Yes, I'm a Marketing Director, and such techniques are old as the devil.

Regarding the movie's IQ: for any drama, the script, acting, SOUND and lighting are 1 billion times more important than the stupid camera/lenses used .
 
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We have OMB against team question here (in future this question will develop into man vs. machine).

Bottom line is that you as a talented single human being can excel in narrower area then a bunch of people (machines) with the excellence in just one single field.

Film-making is still a team sport.
 
Image quality on trailer looks like what it is. Shot on a cheap and amateur device. But this is nothing new. Remember the crappy Dogme 95 miniDV movies? Definitely not new for Soderbergh. He shot Full Frontal with big movie starts on a XL1 or XL2 MiniDV camera and it looked horrible. No game changer here. High end and blockbusters won't suddenly change to iphones just because Soderbergh is doing a movie with a phone. He has always done weird stuff and it has never caught on. It's a gimmick. Mainstream movies don't want to look like it was shot with an amateur device.
 
No, it's not a game changer - Hollywood will not switch to the iPhone for their camera needs. No, it's not a game changer insofar as empowering broke nobodies to make films - an iPhone costs anwhere from $500-$1000, and for that kind of money, you can get cameras (even used) that are more capable than the iPhone.

Can you make a good movie with an iPhone - yes, of course, see "Tangerine" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3824458/

But the iPhone only allows you to make *certain* kinds of movies - its technical limitations (such as low light, etc.) means that you can't shoot a movie where those limitations are critical. So, yes, you'll make "Tangerine" (great!), but you won't make a ton of other movies. Are you OK with that? I'm not - I think there are cameras in roughly the same price range (especially used) that give you greater flexibility, even in things that seem pretty extreme, like size - the iPhone is relatively tiny, but if I have the Sony A7SII, is the minimal difference in size decisive? There are not going to be many places where you can fit an iPhone, but the A7SII is just too big. Meanwhile, if I were to shoot a movie, which would I pick - the iPhone, or the A7SII. To me, the choice is clear. YMMV. If you are a director (other than Soderbergh) who can afford the A7SII, why would you choose the iPhone?

It's like saying a bicycle is a game changer, because it's infinitely cheaper than a car, and uses neither gas not electricity. Now, you can certainly take fantastic trips with a bicycle, but what if you have needs that only a car meets? Same here. For some films the iPhone will be just great, but for others not, meanwhile a GH5 will do whatever the iPhone can, and more.

And as everyone already observed: content, content, content. Hardware is not the limitation these days, and the iPhone does not abolish more limitations than any number of cameras out there, including the GH series, various Sonys, Black Magics etc. for almost the same cost - and I cannot imagine that COST is what made Soderbergh plump for the iPhone.
 
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