Apple turned the iPhone into one of the most used cameras out there, upgrading photo and video quality over the years, and introducing new features that allow the latest iPhones to compete against professional cameras out there.
Acclaimed director and Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh just finished his first iPhone-only movie, Unsane a psychological thriller set to debut in March, and said in an interview that he’s open to shooting movies only on iPhone.
One of the first films shots on the iPhone is Tangerine, a movie that received praising reviews at Sundance a few years ago. Then, iPhone 5s units were used for the project because of financial reasons.
For Soderbergh, meanwhile, who’s used to working on multi-million dollar projects, money isn’t exactly a problem.
“I think this is the future,” he said in an interview at Sundance, IndieWire reports. “Anybody going to see this movie who has no idea of the backstory to the production will have no idea this was shot on the phone. That’s not part of the conceit.”
A fan of high-end RED cameras, Soderbergh said he found the iPhone offered unparalleled quality. “People forget, this is a 4k capture. I’ve seen it 40 feet tall. It looks like velvet. This is a gamechanger to me,” he said.
Asked if he’d commit exclusively to shooting on iPhones, the director said he’d “have to have a pretty good reason not to be thinking about that first.”
“There’s a philosophical obstacle a lot of people have about the size of the capture device,” he added. “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.”
Here’s a trailer for Soderbergh’s Unsane:
