Shot On Samsung – Wong Fu, Moment Lenses & a Note 9
We’re used to iPhone partnering with filmmaker’s to promote their ShotOniPhone marketing campaign designed to promote the democratising properties of iPhones in the hands of filmmakers and photographers. Less noticed, Samsung having been trying to push the video making capabilities of their top phones too.
Recently, they partnered with popular YouTubers Wong Fu Productions to create a video shot with the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Called “Just Another Day” it follows their usual ‘slice of life’ theme. They are a highly popular channel (over 3 million subscribers) and get a lot of views.
When a huge tech company like iPhone or Samsung partners with a filmmaker we have to question what resources beyond a regular Samung or iPhone user are they being provided with? From the look of this video, I would say – not too much beyond our reach. It looks heavily coloured, with the popular ‘film fade’ effect added quite thickly too.
What about those skin colours? A little bit too warm? Well, it is a warm hearted video, with nice friendly music. So maybe the slightly orange skin is fitting.
You’ll notice at about 2:08 there’s a deliberate, precise focus pull. This is definitely done by hand, perhaps using FiLMiC Pro. There’s a degree of shallow depth of field too. What lenses are they using? Do I spot a Moment telephoto?
Why not use 2 cameras? And 2 Moment lenses?
And what’s this….
This is Samsung’s native camera app shooting video in pro mode. Something that has been removed by Samsung in their recent One UI update.
“Thanks to the pro mode on the Galaxy Note 9, we were able to unlock the camera’s full potential. That meant, adjusting ISO, white balance and even aperture. We could even pull our own manual focus, which was awesome.” Philip Wang
Not. Any. More.
Samsung what have you dooonneee?!
Anyway, what do you think of this video? My feeling is very little extra help was supplied from Samsung (if any). They had 2 phones, Moment lenses and the old video pro mode (so not even a dedicated camera app like FiLMiC Pro – that means Log format was NOT used). The photography is simple but tells the story they want to tell, without any showing off.
The flow and the pace of the editing is spot on. The shots get close to the faces so we see what the characters are feeling (using those Moment teles). For me, the colouring is just about right for this, although the red-orange-brown is maybe too much. I do find when I’m editing my episodes (shot on Samsung) I have to pull out a lot of red and push the blue.
Here’s what the director has to say…
Director’s Note:
“Almost exactly 6 years ago, while driving home, I had a random thought.. I wondered, at that very moment, how many people in the world were meeting someone for the first time and that person was going to become their life partner. I tried to guess.. 100,000? 1M? 10M? I thought that was pretty cool. That at any given moment, someone was meeting their future spouse, while I was just sitting in traffic.
“Anyway, I thought that’d be a good tweet, but then it was too long and it turned into a blog post, but then I wanted visuals so it became a script. 6 years ago.
“At the time, WF was a different team and structure, and we tried shooting it but never completed it for a number of reasons. It always haunted me… this script that I really liked, incomplete. So I put a reshoot date on my calendar to remind myself. But month after month passed without it being touched, so I kept dragging it back on the calendar. After a year or two, I started moving it back multiple months, and it would still come and go.
“But I never forgot about it. And finally, a couple months ago, we found the right fit and opportunity in our schedule to make it happen with Samsung. I hope it makes you feel, peaceful.”
Philip Wang
Read more about… The Mobile Motion Film Festival.
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