Shooting movies on an iPhone, Apple TV+ & Apple Health questions on the AppleInsider Podcast

Unsane is the name of the film, and it was let down by weak story and especially that tenuous penultimate ending sequence. Eventually escapes after been through all that and hides behind shipping container in the yard outside? I mean, ffs. And the final scene is barf. Holes everywhere in this one. He made and edited it really quickly, and it shows. Filmmaking takes time to do something good and worth the viewer’s time. He should reconsider why he’s making films. Is it just to see how fast he can make a film now? Regardless, the end product is what history will be the judge of. Also think the quality of the iPhone visuals of this piece look rubbish, tbh. Doesn’t cut the mustard, IMO. The idea of iPhone-filmmaking is better than the reality of the result, it would seem.

I’d would personally love if iPhones were the perfect filmmaking tool, as the technology simplification would be 10X, but the result does not seem to bare this out.

For iPhone to be a premium quality filmmaking tool we’d need Apple to produce a specialised iPhone for videography/cinematography with an interchangeable professional lens solution—industry standard lenses. The OS and processor are not the issue. Battery life is one thing, but especially lens quality where the process falls apart. And in an ideal world, a high end professionally pre-amplified and simplified methodology to connect the sound man to the iPhone. That’s the dream, I guess.

I think the problems with Unsane is that Soderbergh fell in love with the speed of the thing. Like you say, you need to have a shooting script, and generally, the script gets edited as you film. Editing matters, too - the story that gets told is the one that happens in the edit booth. As for lenses, there are a ton. Beastgrip, Helium, Moondog Labs, and more make mounts that place anamorphic lenses on the phone. I get that you think it looks rubbish, but it's held up to super expensive Canon in blind testing. Take a look at the Bentley commercials? I think there's more here.

vmarks said:

I think the problems with Unsane is that Soderbergh fell in love with the speed of the thing. Like you say, you need to have a shooting script, and generally, the script gets edited as you film. Editing matters, too - the story that gets told is the one that happens in the edit booth. As for lenses, there are a ton. Beastgrip, Helium, Moondog Labs, and more make mounts that place anamorphic lenses on the phone. I get that you think it looks rubbish, but it's held up to super expensive Canon in blind testing. Take a look at the Bentley commercials? I think there's more here.

No, sometimes they look fine, but for feature films you can’t hide it. The lenses (and the sensor) are just nowhere near good enough and won’t be for decades, if ever (reasonably speaking). It’s much easier to hide this kind of thing in commercials.

And people not being able to judge side by side is one thing, but recreate the same film, pick a classic, with an iPhone and then see who can’t tell them apart. Or better still, shoot a sequence in a film making no special allowance for the iPhone and then the same with a proper film camera and the difference is miles apart. Like how making no allowances for iPhone as a photo camera vs a high end DSLR, the difference is HUGE!

The idea as iPhone for filmmaking is tantalising, as an idea.

I have to admit that when I saw the headline "shooting movies on an iPhone" I thought it meant something totally different. But of course, that's my problem.