Nearly three years after the departure, Lady Gaga released a new single "Stupid Love" on Friday, along with the song's MV. In the video, Lady Gaga and the dance partner behind them twist their bodies in "strange costumes", and the gorgeous and ultra-realistic visual elements make the whole video exude cyberpunk and steam waves.
But in addition, behind this MV there is a more interesting story that can attract the attention of digital enthusiasts: the shooting equipment of the Stupid Love MV is not other tall professional cameras, but the iPhone 11 Pro that may be in your hands now.
Judging from the official release of several behind-the-scenes shooting tidbits, the iPhone 11 Pro replaced the previous heavy professional camera on the set, relying on a small and lightweight size and a three-camera system, which became a device that made the director "surprised". "After getting used to using larger and more expensive equipment for standardized shooting, shooting with the iPhone is surprising" "This way creates more possibilities and freedom to explore shooting." Director Daniel Askill said about the shooting experience with the iPhone.
Making movies with iPhones seems to have become a new option in the world of film and television.
Last year, the Netflix-produced and directed steven Soderbergh film "High Flying Bird," which was officially released on streaming, tells the story of sports agent Ray Burke (Andre Holland) who introduced rookie client Erick Scott to a fascinating but controversial business opportunity during the NBA shutdown.
"Steven Soderbergh used to shoot with an iPhone, but this time he found something for his paranoid hobbies. While the look and feel of the shot shots shot with a mobile phone is very general, especially when shooting scenes that are moving fast or have direct sunlight, the unique perspective and shooting style provided by the mobile lens inject new energy into the protagonist's performance in the film." David Ehrlich, editor of the film review site IndieWire, wrote about the film.
At present, the freshness of "Goofy Bird" on Rotten Tomatoes remains at 93%, and at Metacritic, it has also received 78 ratings from professional reviewers, which is already a success for a "streaming movie" that does not target the box office.
"Goofy Bird" wasn't Steven Soderbergh's first film to be directed and shot on an iPhone; in fact, his last film, Unsane, was shot on an iPhone.
In addition to Steven Soderbergh, other directors or film and television enthusiasts have also used iPhones to shoot their works. In 2011, a short film called "Apple of My Eye" was uploaded to social media, which was the first short film shot on the iPhone, although it was less than two minutes long, and the picture quality of the iPhone 4 seems to be slightly rough today, but the photographer took advantage of the advantages of the phone's small size, shooting many perspectives that may be difficult for professional cameras to complete, adding a lot of fun to the work.
In addition, works such as "Tangerine", which has participated in the Sundance International Film Festival, and the short film "Snow Steam Iron" directed by "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder, were also filmed on iPhone.
Most of the works mentioned above with the iPhone were chosen by third-party creators for a variety of reasons. With the popularity of video creation and social networking, Apple officials have also begun to emphasize the video shooting performance of the iPhone in recent years, and from 2018 onwards, inviting well-known directors to use the iPhone to shoot New Year short films in China has become the best marketing.
In February 2018, the circle of friends was suddenly swiped by a short film called "Three Minutes", and all the friends who watched the whole film liked and forwarded, and left comments such as "crying into a dog", "warm healing short film", "watching crying" and so on. This short film directed by Chen Kexin is apple's first time involved in the Theme of the Spring Festival, and the main marketing plan in China, the whole use of iPhone X shooting is a highlight. In the end, with clever material selection and conception, "Three Minutes" also achieved a good response at the time.
Probably seeing the success of the planning, Apple invited Jia Zhangke and Sidoo Melfi to direct "A Bucket" and "Daughter" in 2019 and 2020, using the latest iPhone as shooting equipment, family affection and Spring Festival are still the main elements of the story. A little different is that unlike the "ordinary actors" in "Three Minutes" and "A Bucket", "Daughter" also invited Zhou Xun, a well-known actress in China, to play the leading role.
What does it mean to shoot movies with iPhone? I think that for professional film and television workers, with the development of portable devices such as mobile phones, it can provide a new perspective for the shooting of movies, and the pictures that may be difficult to shoot through professional cameras in the past are sometimes easier to achieve through mobile phones, and these pictures are often installed in movies as B-rolls to add interest to the picture.
If you choose to use a mobile phone to shoot the entire movie, then such as the inability to achieve background blur when shooting close-ups, high requirements for light conditions, and the lack of high picture quality resolution, the birth defects of the mobile phone's native camera have become problems that have to be considered, and only when your story is attractive enough, these visual defects will not become the fuse for the audience to score low.
In fact, these picture defects exist in "Goofy Bird" shot with iPhone 8, and the script may be the reason for the high score of this film, just like Chen Kexin's "Three Minutes", when everyone talked more about the storyline of this short film than the iPhone X.
When a movie is decided to shoot with an iPhone, the iPhone becomes the least important device.
New technologies are just one part of the ever-changing film industry that presents both new opportunities and challenges for creators. "You still have to understand the principles of editing, sound, and footage, and you can't go out with your phone and start shooting." Sean Baker, who shot "Orange" on the iPhone 5S, said.
But it can't be said that these film and television works shot with iPhones are simply "showmanship". One of the benefits of shooting with an iPhone is that it is "grounded" enough, and the device is no longer a gap between you and a well-known director, if you can learn some mirror or other mobile shooting skills after watching it, it is also a bonus.