7 Years Ago: First Feature Shot on a Smartphone

7 Years Ago: First Feature Film Shot on a Smartphone

Yesterday, I came across the film which was claimed by the director to be the first ever 90+ minute film shot using a smartphone. Can you guess which phone it was shot with? Hint: not an iPhone.

The film had its theatrical premiere in Los Angeles on 16th December, 2011. For reference this was just after the release of the iPhone 4s.

The film was directed by Hooman Khalili, whose only previous claims to fame was to be “Party Goer” in the film Cloverfield and a voice actor in Cars. He’s since gone onto… uh… not much, going by his IMDb page. But apparently he’s since become a “morning show personality in San Francisco“.

The film was billed as a story about “a little girl who transforms the lives of three people without speaking one word”. There was even a Hollywood star among the cast. Gena Rowlands, nominated for 2 Oscars for her work with her husband John Cassavetes. When they failed to get money from the maker of the phone, they turned to Chris Kelly, former chief privacy officer of Facebook. In the end, they had a budget of under $500k.

“I said, ‘That’s a great idea, but the story’s got to work too,'” said Chris Kelly, who had executive-produced documentaries including The Power of Two and Jiro Dreams of Sushi. “So we looked through the script, and it looked fantastic. We deliberately wanted people to say at the end, ‘I completely forget that movie was shot on a cellphone.'”

With additional funds from businessman Bill O’Keefe, Khalili was able to cover the filming costs. Casting was one major expense. But with help from casting director Robin Lippin, Khalili was able to snag Gena Rowlands.

The phone itself cost $400, which he had to hack into to “turn off the autofocus and autozoom” (is autozoom a thing on phones?).

Here’s a BTS snap:

Do you recognise the phone? Interesting to see they did not approach it with a minimalist philosophy – the phone was taped to a rig with prime lenses. According to Khalili, they had everything you would expect for a regular film shoot – cast, crew, lighting, gear and so on. Only difference was the phone replacing a regular camera.

Khalili first got the idea to make a feature film shot entirely on a smartphone in January 2010. For reference, the iPhone 3GS would have been around then.

Despite having 5 times the budget of Tangerine, Khalili reported facing a few challenges during the shoot.

“There was a lot of things making this nearly impossible for us,” said Khalili, to the LA Times, explaining how they had to they had to hack the phone to turn off the auto focus and the auto zoom. “The camera thinks it knows what you want to focus on, but it doesn’t know.”

Having tried to pay professional camera makers to build a 35mm camera that would work with the phone and failed to find anyone willing, Khalili and his team built dismantled a 1940s-era cine camera to figure it out.

In a precursor to drones, they created one overhead shot by mounting the phone to a remote-control helicopter and crossing their fingers.

The 90-minute smartphone film was shot over the course of five weeks in Northern California and edited in nine days.

Guessed the phone yet?

That’s right, it’s a Nokia N8. Video shooting options were 720p @ 25fps or 720p @ 30fps.

Is it me, or does this design hold up well? It’s a bit more Star Trek, perhaps, than what we are used to these days.

After the film was finished, Khalili went on kickstarter to try to raise $300k for distribution. The campaign failed, but drew the attention of mainstream media outlets including “CBS Evening News”, getting the film a promotional push anyway. Then it seems Khalili was hoping a possible Oscar nomination for the film’s song would work PR magic and a distributor would come calling.

“In Hollywood, the way they like independent films to work is you go to one festival, then another, get a buyer, do a short theater run, position yourself for all the awards show and then the crown jewel, the Oscars,” Khalili said.

“I didn’t do any of that,” he added. “I just made a movie, did a one-week qualifying run — and ‘Olive’ went straight to the Academy Awards.”

It appears that when the Academy Awards ignored the film, Khalili abandoned the fight to get distribution as the film is nowhere to be found online. However, there is an official website still up here.

The website leaves us with a faded filmmaker’s dream: “The goal now is to be the first film to not only be shot on a cell phone, but to also be the first independently financed feature film on 2,000+ theaters across the United States without the backing of a major studio.”

We have to dream, right?

You can watch the first 5 minutes of the film on youtube. There’s also a fun behind the scenes movie:

So that’s 7 years of smartphone feature films. And although Olive was shot with a decent budget, and they used a lot of traditional equipment, it’s great to see they were already improvising with the phone and exploring ways to use it for what it is – a very small camera.

It’s also fitting that Gena Rowlands starred in the film, as she was a major part of the first real “get up and just make your film with what you have” movement in America.

Look like Khalili put all his future filmmaking hopes onto this film, saying he would only make another if Olive got a wide theatrical distribution.

“This has been a monumental task,” he said. “I’m exhausted.”

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