Apple CEO Tim Cook, while introducing the iPhone 15 Pro Max last year, mentioned that the cameras are designed for professional filmmaking.
Apple filmed one of its launch events with the iPhone 15 Pro series. Now, five filmmakers took up this challenge and filmed five short films with the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
These short films are available for free on MAMI’s YouTube channel, and if you watch them, you may begin to believe that in the right hands, it’s not about megapixels but about perspective and the art of storytelling.
The five filmmakers (Saurav Rai, Archana Atul Phadke, Faraz Ali, Saumyananda Sahi, and Prateek Vats) under the mentorship of industry icons like Vishal Bhardwaj, Vikramaditya Motwane and Rohan Sippy released five short films called ‘Crossing borders’, ‘Mirage’, ‘Óbur’, ‘A new life’ and ‘Jal Tu Jalaal Tu’ respectively using the iPhone 15 Pro Max and MacBook Pro with M3 Max chip.
The filmmakers were selected by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) to create short films for the MAMI Select 2024 – Filmed on iPhone initiative.
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Vishal Bhardwaj, the iconic director who shot his film Fursat on the iPhone 14 Pro, believes that filming with a non-traditional camera can be liberating. “You don’t need to limit yourself with the shots, the depth, or the colors you capture… If you go all out with your vision, the results will surprise you,” he said.
“The iPhone is a real boon for filmmakers. It allows everyone to photograph wonderful things,” said Vikramaditya Motwane.
While the results of using an iPhone to film a movie are available on YouTube for everyone to see, what’s interesting is that each of the five filmmakers had a different take on what it felt like to film with an iPhone.
Using ProRes to get it right
Prateek Vats on the set of ‘Jal Tu Jalaal Tu‘ using the iPhone 15 Pro Max mentioned that he shot the movie in a 4:3 aspect ratio, which dates back to televisions in the ’90s. Using the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 24mm main camera, he frames character portraits that allow the audience to see them through their eyes. He used the iPhone’s ProRes Log recording capabilities by fine-tuning specific areas in terms of exposure and color.
The short film he co-directed with Shubham is inspired by Anton Chekhov’s short story The Death of a Government Official. Titled Jal Tu Jalal Tu (You are water, you are the almighty), it captures the anxiety of a factory worker who accidentally offends his employer. The film delves into power dynamics and social hierarchies in a working-class environment.
Use cinematic mode to tell stories
“We shot with the iPhone 15 Pro Max and then sent it for color correction… No hassle, no tricks,” said Saurav Rai, the creator of ‘Crossing Borders’. The short film tells the story of a woman who smuggled goods, such as saris and umbrellas, across the Indo-Nepal border to make ends meet.
“Having used Apple products for a long time… the iPhone 15 Pro Max is made for filmmakers. Cinematic mode keeps your richly developed characters in focus while blurring the foreground or background. “Shooting like this gives you a beautiful depth of field that you can control in post-production or on the iPhone itself,” Rai explained.
Getting the right mix of 24mm to 120mm sockets
Archana Atul Phadke, for her short film called ‘Mirage’, preferred long shots as a prominent way of telling stories. The film centers on a boy who spends all his time in front of his iPhone, only to lose it (and himself) in the desert. To juxtapose the vast landscape with the budding protagonist, Phadke used the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s native cameras to compress and decompress the narrative.
“With the default 24mm main camera, I explore wide shots at first. Towards the end, the 120mm telephoto camera, which provides astonishing depth, makes the child’s world smaller and smaller,” Phadke explained.
Using the Voice Memo app for audio
Filmmaker Faraz Ali Óbur (Cloud) is a tragicomedy that follows a teenager who loses the memories of his sick mother. The memories were on his iPhone, which he pawned to a pharmacist in exchange for his mother’s medical assistance.
“Color can tip the balance toward tragedy or comedy,” he explained. “Log-encoded ProRes video gives my grading artist and me the raw material we need to find that delicate balance.”
For this film, Ali recorded ambient sounds on the iPhone 15 Pro Max using the Voice Memos app and an external microphone. On Mac, she also uses Final Draft to work on her scripts, as well as Adobe Photoshop to color-correct photographs during pre-production.
Get the right equipment
Saumyananda’s film Sahi’ A New Life‘ follows a migrant factory worker who leaves his pregnant wife behind in search of better job opportunities. Shot in Kolkata and Bengaluru, it examines tropes of parenthood and long-distance relationships.
Cinematographer Runal Hattimattur used a small cage on a tripod with an iPhone 15 Pro Max for the film.
“We are recording the video calls in real-time and the iPhone is part of the proceedings. That kind of storytelling is only possible here… I can lock the exposure or shoot Log like I normally do with an Arri Alexa film camera,” she explained.
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