How to make a Hollywood film with just the phone in your pocket
We’ve all heard about people shooting a hit feature on a smartphone, but can you really do it and, even if you do, will anybody want to watch it? Steven Cutts reports
In the spring of 2019 I flew into Cannes ready for what was to become my third trip to the eponymous film festival. Stepping off the plane with my usual heady optimism, I agreed to share a taxi from the airport with an eager young filmmaker from India. Raj had just shot a feature-length documentary on an iPhone XS and neither of us had any money. Chatting on the back seat, I wished him luck, assuming he wouldn’t get anywhere. Two or three days later I bumped into him again, this time at the Marche Du Film. He had just sold his documentary for $90,000.
And that got me thinking. Maybe we’re too hung up on the actual kit. We’ve all heard about people shooting a hit feature on a smartphone, but can you really do it and, even if you do, will anybody want to watch it?
In fact, it is possible and it’s already been done: 2015 was the breakthrough year for smartphone movies, with the alternative feature Tangerine being shot entirely on an iPhone 5S. These days, the 5S sounds a bit basic, not to mention outdated, but at the time director Sean Baker managed to secure a cinematic release. I remember watching it in London with a bunch of wannabe directors, all of them convinced they could shoot on a smartphone.
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