Steven Soderbergh Says He Only Wants to Use iPhones to Shoot Movies

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rgMekanic

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In an article on IndieWire, director Steven Soderbergh, director of "sex, lies and videotape," and "Oceans 11/12/13" states he is done directing "studio movies" and only wants to use iPhones for his upcoming projects. Soderbergh's newest movie "Unsane" was shot completely on iPhones.

Photography is a passion of mine, and I will just say... no. Looking at the screen shots from "Unsane" it very much looks like it was shot on a phone. I can see it if used as a tool, say in a "found footage" style of movie, but other than that.. just no.

“People forget, this is a 4k capture,” said Soderbergh, who was long a passionate advocate for the high-end RED cameras. “I’ve seen it 40 feet tall. It looks like velvet. This is a gamechanger to me.”
 
Some director once wanted to capute "real life." So he filmed a guy sleeping. ~8 hour movie and the high point was he got up once to pee. And some people liked it. I'm sure plenty will like this, "what a brave guy shooting on an iPhone!" and such. Oh well, there's plenty of movies on my too watch list.
 
“People forget, this is a 4k capture,”
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The resolution doesn't matter if the sensor isn't up to the task. Phone cameras at 4k don't even come close to a RED or other professional camera. Unless his movie is shot completely in daylight, it's not going to look great because you're not going to get those beautifully colored night shots with an iPhone, the sensor that small just can't get enough light.

I recently saw Den of Thieves (btw, some of the best firearm sound design in a movie I've seen recently) and was surprised that they used drone shots from what appeared to be a consumer drone. Yeah, it may have been 4k, but the colors were crushed and there was noticeable noise - simply not enough information for it to look good. It was night and day between it and the other cameras they shot with.
 
99% of people won't care or notice... especially if the story/acting is good enough to suck you in...
 
Only the artsy-fartsy types will drool over this and over compensate with extreme hyperbole on some esoteric image in the movie anchoring the entire film while the depth of thought required to understand it is being mocked by the camera.

Shit, I want to get some popcorn and turn the seat around to watch the audience watching this.
 
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KInd of a boring movie that new one... Yeah life is suffering, get over it, pick up your cross and bear it, 80 years on a prison colony, yada yada.
 
LoLOLOLOLOLOLOL....we are talking about showcase pristine quality material here....give me a break.
 
Read between the lines and he's just trying to justify cutting costs in no longer being able to afford the professional, high-end equipment.
 
Probably just a stunt to get people curious enough to go see the movie.

Then next one, he won't use phones again.
 
So how many iPhones do you need to shoot a movie in 4K? Do you just have a stack of them and swap them out each time you max out storage? What are you going to do when the storage corrupts and your have to do a reshoot? Do you need Arri Alexa or Red camera to shoot a movie? No, but there is reason why even "cheap" cameras like the Canon C300 give you the means to duplicate and backup shots as you shoot them.
 
So he'll be hitting storage limits and have near 0 zooming.... great. I am sure the amount of post production to correct the video will outweigh the use of a real camera......smooth
 
viper1152012 said:
So he'll be hitting storage limits and have near 0 zooming.... great. I am sure the amount of post production to correct the video will outweigh the use of a real camera......smooth
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Naw there are lense attachments. And there is probably a wireless storage solution.
 
ianken said:
LOL. That's just nuts. I can see doing it as a pet project. But come on. No mobile camera matches a real cinema rig.

Of course it looks like "velvet" all detail is destroyed by compression.
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Don't forget the massive noise reduction and sharpening the processing does to make it all smudgy as f***. Unless he is shooting in raw(not possible with mobile video afik) or in prores.
 
Another dweeb who doesn't understand the different between resolution and quality.

I'd rather see a movie shot in high quality 1080p on a decent camera with a good lens.
 
ianken said:
LOL. That's just nuts. I can see doing it as a pet project. But come on. No mobile camera matches a real cinema rig. Of course it looks like "velvet" all detail is destroyed by compression.
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nutzo said:
Another dweeb who doesn't understand the different between resolution and quality. I'd rather see a movie shot in high quality 1080p on a decent camera with a good lens.
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chameleoneel said:
Probably just a stunt to get people curious enough to go see the movie. Then next one, he won't use phones again.
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You guys aren't seeing the forest for the trees. What he's attempting to do is communicate to a younger generation of creative filmmakers that they don't need big and expensive hardware to make movies or documentaries. Hell, Blair Witch should have already made it pretty self evident. So by having a big whale such as Soderbergh setting a precedent, it'll inspire kids to push the envelope. And while some of you guys argue about 4k capture it's practically irrelevant if you have a well written script and director to bring that story to life. Nobody will care about the resolution or pixels, they'd rather be immersed in the story.
 
That's nice honey.gif

Whatever, you build what you want to build, and I may or may not watch it. Most likely not, but I don't think you using iPhones changes that.
 
Ski said:
. Hell, Blair Witch should have already made it pretty self evident.
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that this is a bad idea ;). (Yeah couldn't stand that movie, bad camera movement and bad script and bad acting.)
 
While the iphone is certainly capable of capturing a better image than the average person behind it, this is a pretty tired gimmick. It's no different than the photographers who only used disposable cameras (or polaroid) back in the day.
 
Have to see what comes out of it to decide if successful or not. You can do some funky stuff with an IPhone in shooting, especially if you have hundreds of them for a given scene. Ground up shots (looking up that dress angle), first person views, 3d views. While the quality may not be comparable, there maybe a number of things that cannot be done with a professional style camera either. Having 20 drones covering a complex scene flying around with Iphones recording 4K could be very amazing - flying through corridors, windows or with birds taking a shot. The portability/smallness can allow some unique artistic styles/expressions.
 
Apperanrlty #courage means "on purpose doing something bad when you have better options, just to be special".
 
In general, this this sort of "innovation" usually happens when they expect their product to fail. Instead marketing gimmicks are needed to compensate for projected losses.
 
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