Steven Soderbergh: Smartphone Filmmaking “The Future”
Throw away your Red Epic and your Arri Alexa, Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh says that using smartphones to shoot a film is “a game changer”.
His latest feature, Unsane, was shot entirely using smartphone cameras and will be released in March [in the UK] this year.
“I think this is the future,” Soderbergh told Indiewire. “Anybody going to see this movie who has no idea of the backstory to the production will have no idea this was shot on an iPhone [or, indeed, any kind of smartphone]. That’s not part of the conceit.”
(I don’t believe Soderbergh is suggesting we limit ourselves to Apple products to make films, so I’m going to substitute the word iPhone. I mean, it’s almost like Apple-worship some kind of a cult or something).
“People forget, this is a 4k capture,” Soderbergh said of the popular branded smartphone device he prefers over other 4k capable devices (like Sony Xperia, Huawei P10, Samsung Galaxy S8,Google Pixel XL, LG G6, OnePlus 5, HTC U11, Xiaomi Mi6, MOTO Z2…). “I’ve seen [‘Unsane’] 40 feet tall. It looks like velvet.”
Soderbergh is not the first filmmaker to shoot a movie with a phone. Before making “The Florida Project,” director Sean Baker used only [some brand of smartphone, can’t remember which] to shoot “Tangerine.” But whereas Baker has gone back to film and seems to prefer it (seeing Tangerine as more of a stepping stone to making films the traditional way), Soderbergh is advocating this as a revolutionary next step.
“There’s a philosophical obstacle a lot of people have about the size of the capture device,” Soderbergh told Indiewire of shooting with a device-that-was-once-used-to-call-people-and-talk-to-them. “I don’t have that problem. I look at this as potentially one of the most liberating experiences that I’ve ever had as a filmmaker, and that I continue having. The gets that I felt moment to moment were so significant that this is, to me, a new chapter.”
We don’t get “gets”. But they sound positive. And “Unsane” opens in theaters on March 23.
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