Rolling On - An iPhone Film

T

tengo

Active member


This video was done to test the video capability of the iPhone 3Gs. iPhone only has a very basic implementation of video. The only option, apart from the Start/Stop recording button, is to touch the targeted area on screen to focus. After shooting, you can trim the scenes in the phone itself.

There is very little colour grading done as the purpose of the video is to demonstrate the true capability of iPhone. Besides vignetting and some simple editing effects, the images are largely left alone. I also did not use any rig, tripod or stabilizer. Where possible, I tried to steady myself with a tree or railings. Most shots were done handheld while on rolling wheels. I was on my K2 skates throughout the whole shoot. Video was cropped to 640 x 360 from default 640 x 480 to obtain the widescreen look.

I feel that Apple has done a good job considering iPhone's tiny little lens and CMOS sensor. The auto-focus, auto-exposure and colour balance are well engineered and I hardly feel the need to do grading in post (using Final Cut Pro and ProRes).

The best thing about the iPhone though is its ability to get unobtrusive shots which will be difficult or impossible with a large camera. Plus we can carry the phone at all times and start shooting any moment.
 
Last edited:
Good job with this! Nice to see the full capabilities of the iPhone. I am thinking of doing something small and simple for the next dvxfest, perhaps using a Vado or something else small, like this.
 
Thanks for putting this together. So all the viginetting is from the iPhone, none was added in post? It's pretty heavy in some of those shots. It can be nice stylisticly sometimes, but could be a pain to deal with. Overall, it looks pretty good though. The big thing though is obviously the portability. Since you almost always have your phone with you, it at least gives you the ability to capture videos you would otherwise have no chance at. Better to capture it with the imperfections/limitations of the phone than to miss it entirely, I say.
 
Nope... the vignetting is all done in post. I guess I could have done without the vignetting but I am still trying to make a more watchable video here. However, I hardly graded any shots except the very first scene as it was shot in low light, the plane scene (b/w). So if u ignore the vignetting, the quality is what you get from iphone. I must say that the colours do look richer and image slightly sharper in FCP. What you see in vimeo is after two compressions. I compress to H.264 with compressor and then vimeo does its own conversion again.

Exposure is a matter of taste since the only thing we can do is to touch the screen to focus. So let's take the beach scene for example. If I focus on the people out playing in the sea, then I get a properly exposed image. If I focus on the people on the beach, then the beach gets brighter and the sky gets blown out. iPhone's auto-exposure follows what you focus by touching the selected part on screen.
 
Very cool, im actually pretty impressed at the iphones capabilities. I have the 3G still so i dont do video, cant wait to see what the next one can do (shoudl release in the next 3 months or so)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top