IPHONE FILM MAKERS MEET MAVIS

IPHONE FILM MAKERS MEET MAVIS

There would come a day when an app that suited the smart phone film maker perfectly would come along. The Mavis app may not be perfect, but it is close enough for what we are going to use it for. Let’s begin with the fact that this app is not cheap. You are going to be spending at least 16 dollars, but hey you are making a movie. A professional film. If you are looking to produce something that will be seen by others, not only online, but in a movie theater someday then you are going to spend money somewhere and we are saving money by using our iphone rather than buying a costly DSLR camera.

Today we are going to look at a comparison between the three major apps used by smartphone film makers and this look will conclude with the Mavis app.

I found this short film shoot with the app.

This is a brand new year. We are entering an age of film making that I had doubts about when I started this blog over three years ago. I doubt if a Star Wars episode will ever be shot using a smart phone, but films like La La Land and Split are becoming a possibility. The future of iphone film making is in your hands. You will determine the shape of that future. To help you guys along the path I am going to share with you, during the next few post, quick tutorials about film making. There is a great deal more that goes into film making than just recording images and editing them together. You will have to learn how to how stories are told visually.

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New Iphone Short Films

New Iphone short Films



There are so many iPhone films being produced each week that it is hard to keep up with them and to decide which ones that I would like to spotlight here at this iPhone film making site. Lets get right to it and have a look at a few films. This film is foreign and the truth about the iPhone film making movement is that it has become an extremely popular tool used by film makers in developing countries. Dslr cameras are are to come by in many of these countries, but the iphone, particularly the older models such as the 4s are available and can be used to record amazing footage.  


   


  

This short film was shot using the iphone 6. 

 

   Next is the short iPhone film titled Balloon along with the making of video. advice to all iphone film makers, you can do a great deal to help future film makers by shooting some behind the scene footage.


     

 

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Iphone 6 Short Films and Filmmaking

Iphone 6 Short Films, 2015

 Today I would like to share with you a few short films that were shot using an iPhone 6. Like the previous versions of this product the iphone 6 is an amazing digital film making tool. Many film makers are now using the iphone in one model or another to record at least some footage for their films. The first film that I would like to share with you is a comedy. I suggest that you stick around for the punchline.



 Next is a trailer for an iphone 6 short film. I believe that it was edited with the iphone as well.

 

 You may notice that some films look different from others. The quality of the film is in large part due to the skill of the film maker and how much time has been spent preparing for the shoot. Iphone film making is like any other kind of film making. The more work that you put in before you start shooting the better your film will look in the end. There is no secret to great film making. Write a good screenplay, find good actors and light it well. Here are two great tutorials on iphone 6 film making.



 

 Thank you for visiting my site and please take a moment to share this post and good luck with your film making. Here is a bonus film shot using the iphone 6 plus. 


  

Iphone Film Making, Departure

        Iphone film making is now a growing sub culture in the indie film making world. This sub culture has reached around the world. There are film makers in Europe, Asia and South America using these smart phones to make movies. In many third world countries the iphone is being looked upon as the best option for young film makers to chase their cinematic dreams.

    Every few weeks a whole batch of new films are being released to the public. I spend a few hours each week going over footage from iPhone film makers. Like with all types of film making there are different levels of quality. The quality of the film usually equates to the skill and experience of the film maker.

    The film that I would like to highlight today is the ambition iphone project named Departure. This film was shot in three countries USA, France & Belarus.  Also this iphone film was directed by three different directors. The long term plans with this project it to expand it into something like a series that follows events in each country.

Okay here is a look at the film.


Departure from iPhone Film Festival on Vimeo.




Here is a look at the Q & A with the film makers.
Departure from iPhone Film Festival on Vimeo.



Thank you for visiting my blog. If you would like to become a better film maker it begins with the screenplay. Read as many quality scripts and you can online. Study the craft and if you would like a book recommendation then you can check out my book on writing a low budget film script by clicking the image on the right side of the page. Good luck with your future projects and have a nice day.

Iphone Short Films and New Equipment

 Today I would like to show you guys a few award nominated short films that were shot using the iphone 4s and/or iphone 5. During the past year this style of film making is steadily growing in popularity. As always keep in mind that to become a good iphone or smartphone film maker you must first learn the basics of film making. You must spend time learning about lighting and how to capture quality sound. Okay lets look at some footage shot with an iphone 5. This is test footage that has been nominated for awards.

  
iPhone 5 + PentaEye = Awesome! from Shana: HAPPYSHIVER on Vimeo.

 Next up is a short film that was shot using the iphone 4s. This short is from Japan, I would love to get more footage from Japan since some of the best feature length films are made there each year. The title is A Class Re-union.

   

 The next short is titled A Little More Drama, and it was shot using an Iphone 5.

 
a Little More Drama - shot on iPhone 5 (Award Winning) from Johan Dijkstra on Vimeo.

 Next is a little short film that I like a lot. Maybe because I like sci fi that is idea rather than effect oriented, The Dark Side of The Earth.




 

 The last thing I want you to look at is a new piece of equipment that can be used while film making with the iphone.

     

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Iphone 5 Short and The Iphone as Film making Support

Today I have an iphone 5 short film for you that comes along with a BTS video as well. I wish more film makers who shoot with the iphone would do behind the scene videos because this style of film making is still new and there is not much other there about the subject.


Iphone film makers should look at themselves in the same way that other low budget film makers do. This is a real industry. This is a growing industry and over the next few years will become part of the mainstream film industry. Of course this can only happen if those who are out there in the trenches shooting films are willing to record their experiences. To also write and talk about the tricks and short cuts that they have learned along the way.

I believe that this short film was shot in South Africa. It was shot on the iPhone 5. Following the film will be the behind the scene’s footage.



Next I would like to talk to you about using the iPhone as a way of supporting your overall film. You may shoot your film using a Dslr or a camcorder, but there are scenes where these devices are not the best ones for the job. Your iphone can capture the footage that you need. The film that I am going to show you is a found footage film that was shot using a web cam, iphone and a Gopro. I did a full length interview with the film maker, and you can read that interview by clicking here.. There are problems with shooting a film with the use of multiple devices, but if you do your research before hand, you will be able to overcome the editing and footage problems.

The title of the film is Encounter.



Thank you for visiting my blog. If you would like to learn more about what it takes to be a full time filmmaker then I would suggest checking out my book of interviews with film makers. The book contains a ton of hands on information about low budget film making. You can find it on Amazon by clicking here.

Iphone Filmmaking, Equipment Notes

I know that it has been a while since the last post. I have been busy with my new ebook. You will find a link to it at the end of this post.

Today I would live to show you two iphone shorts and a great tutorial on some equipment you may want to add to your iphone film makers kit.

First up is a new iphone 4s short I would like to show to you guys. I understand that it is the film makers first attempt at an iphone film and it is very well do.


    



  Next up is a short thriller shot on the iphone 4s. Sometimes the best think about film making is just going out and shooting some footage. There is nothing new where the plot of this film is concerned, but it looked like it was fun to shoot and the iphone can give you that kind of freedom. You know to go out and shoot a short slasher film.

    

 Next up are two tutorials from Aron J. Anderson. A film maker I interviewed recently. He has done a great short film titled Clandestine. I can not show it here, because it was not done with the iphone, but here is a link to the interview which features the film click here.     .

First up is a tutorial on DIY iphone lenses.




DIY iPhone Lenses TFX tv # 1 from Aron J Anderson on Vimeo.

 This is part two of the tutorial.
   
iPhone Lens Mount Tutorial TFX tv # 2 from Aron J Anderson on Vimeo.


 Again thank you for visiting my site. Please take a moment to share this post or even Pin it. All social media is good media. Now the last note for today is about my new ebook. It is a book of interviews that I have done during the last year. I have learned as much about film making from conducting interviews with this film makers as I did no a set. The interviews not only function as Q&A sessions, but mini tutorials on a number of subjects from dealing with cast and crew, to writing, to raising money for your film. I put together the book that I wanted to find ten years ago when I was starting out. If your next question is about a book on iphone film making, then the answer is that it is coming soon. Understand that many of the lessons found in this book can be applied to iphone film making.

Buy at Amazon

Good luck with your projects and have a nice day.

The iPhone 5 Experimental Short

The iPhone 5 Experimental Short

There is going out and just shooting some footage with your iphone and then there is deciding to go out an do something ground breaking. So far the production of the iPhone short film The Other Side looks to be ground breaking.
    

 What Conrad Mess is attempting to do is change the conversation that we are having about this device when used as a film making tool. Looking at the early footage from the project makes me wonder why someone has not attempted this sooner. The iphone has come a long way during the last eighteen months as being considered one of the devices that we can shoot a movie with. Being a digital film maker is about taking risk and experimenting. If you can not take risk with your smartphone, then when can you take risk.

 If you want to be a film maker you need to shoot as much footage as possible and you need to post it and get feedback. Do not be afraid to be criticized. You will learn from it. Okay I have a few iPhone films I would like you to look at today.

First up are 2 shorts shoot with the iPhone 4s.

   
Pure Light [iPhone Short Film] from Ben-Christopher David on Vimeo.
Next up is a little behind the scenes of a iphone film shoot.
Making of Apple short film . Behind the scene . VFX Breakdown from D21pictures on Vimeo.


 Okay that is it. Please take a moment to share this post and look into posting your work online. Between Vimeo and Youtube you can not go wrong. I would post at both sites. The video quality seems to be slightly better though at Vimeo. Check it out and tell me what do you think.

You can visit the crowd funding campaign of The Other side by clicking here.

David Lynch And iPhone Film Making

  Today I am please to offer a guest post by iPhone Film maker    SSBelafonte.  If you like this post take a moment and visit him on facebook at www.facebook.com/ssbelafonte

                                David Lynch And iPhone Film Making

It can be argued that creative innovation is born of limitation. David Lynch is, arguably, one of the most innovative filmmakers to have emerged during the twentieth century. As an iPhone filmmaker, I am, inescapably, influenced by the dark genius of David Lynch. Lynch has made some dichomotic statements regarding the use of digital advancements as they apply to filmmaking. Would David Lynch support or decry the burgeoning iPhone filmmaking movement?



(David Lynch's Rubber Duck) Belafonte Neo-Noir Digital Surreal Short Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing from SSBELAFONTE on Vimeo.



As a filmmaker, I utilize the digital video camera of the iPhone 5 to achieve my creative vision because I enjoy the challenge of creating within the imposed boundaries of rigid limitations. Additionally, it’s an astonishingly high quality camera (8-megapixel, HD 1080p at up to 30 frames per second) that is built into a portable device that I always have with me. Perhaps, the most attractive aspect: it didn’t cost thousands upon thousands of dollars.



It has been almost 36 years since the release of Lynch’s first, feature-length film Eraserhead. Lynch made Eraserhead as a student at AFI with a prohibitively small budget. As a result of the financial limitations Lynch, being an Eagle Scout, employed inexpensive materials and methods to create an innovative masterwork. From the use of black & white film to, quite literally, building his own sets, and creating his own soundscapes, Lynch’s innovations were a means of circumventing limitations.



While promoting his latest feature-length film, Inland Empire (filmed with DV), in 2008 Lynch expressed his distain for the iPhone as component of cinema:



Now if you’re playing the movie on a telephone

you will never, in a trillion years experience the film.

You’ll think you’ll have experienced it, but you’ll be cheating.

It’s a, such a sadness that you think you’ve

seen a film on your fucking telephone. Get real.


David Lynch on digital video versus film at AFI in 2010:



And we did tests, um, ah, to bump up to high-def from

the low quality DV that I was shooting. And then tests from

high-def to film. And I loved the quality, and I think what

I loved about it was it’s not film. And you know,

the advances in film, everything is very very crisp.

I mean you can make it soft if you want but its, its got

a – film is so beautiful. But it used to be, in the 30’s less quality.

And this new, this DV that I was shooting reminded me of that.

So it’s just, some information is lost and it made me

feel like there was more room to dream, and I liked that aspect.



  (David Lynch’s Louboutins) was inspired by the print ads that Lynch created for Christian Louboutin; filmed exclusively with the iPhone 5 camera, in the vain of David Lynch, and edited in iMovie. It is intended as a contemplation of the deeper story line of the femme-fatales within the ads. When filming with the iPhone 5 camera lighting is the most important variable. Beautiful cinematography can be created, even in low light conditions, if the shot is properly lit. To achieve the cinematography you see I worked backwards in terms of lighting, filming at night in complete darkness, incrementally adding low-light sources (simple flashlights): simple innovation from limitation.

  Lynch has made it inescapably clear that he doesn’t want us watching films on the iPhone. I am, largely, in support of this conclusion. However, if you’re going to watch Lost Highway on your iPhone or not watch it at all, the world becomes a better place if you have see it. However, as a means of capturing images Lynch has expressed support for DV, and specifically low-fi DV. The iPhone filmmaker utilizes their iPhone, creatively, out of limitation. On can argue that innovation has thus occurred allowing the iPhone filmmaker more room to dream. If David Lynch has taught us anything, it’s that: anything is possible In Dreams.

(David Lynch's Louboutins) Belafonte Neo-Noir Digital Surreal Short Move Along from SSBELAFONTE on Vimeo.




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iPhone Shorts

  iPhone Shorts

Every few weeks I like to show you guys some of the newer iPhone short films being made. We will still focus mostly on the iphone 4s as a digital film making tool, but we will when they present themselves look at iphone 5 short films as well.  
Never Trust a Gypsy from kelly fancher on Vimeo.
The following footage is from an award winning film maker. He has not only shot a great iphone short film, but has also shot a behind the scenes video. It is not in English, but many of the world’s best digital film makers are from other countries. This is where I should include films shot with the iphone 5, but there is not a great deal of footage out there yet. It is a great device, but with the exception of the apps that are available for film makers we are still catching up in the other areas. The needed attachments are just hitting the market. With the design of the iphone 5 being different from the iphone 4s it has meant that most of the lenses and supports used by film makers do not translate to the iPhone 5. There is also the fact that the iphone 4s is a great little device and why put it away as a film making tool unless you have to. I am going to do a post of nothing, but iPhone 5 short films. If you have one that you believe should be included, drop me a message by leaving a comment here or you could add me to your google plus and send me a message that way. Thank you for visiting. Please take a moment to share this post and to stumble it on stumbleupon.

The Newest iPhone Filmmaing App

               The Newest Iphone Filmmaking App

Neal Edelstein, the producer of the films Mulholland Drive and the Ring has advanced the iPhone film making world by introducing a new IOS App. With this App a film is delivered in chunks. The first movie that he has made available through this App is his own production, Haunting Melissa. A straight horror film that would probably do well on any platform, but will help to advance the use of this game changing app.   Haunting Melissa does not have an exact length. I understand that they shot thousands of hours of video. This video is offered in chapters on a timeline that can be tweaked on the back end. This means that the content constantly changes. Like different options on a video game. You could go back to a previously viewed chapter and find that it has changed slightly. The possibilities are awesome and for the creator the profits could be as well. Each chapter will be offered at .99 cents in the iTunes store, but you could buy a season pass for as low as 6.99. I believe that the first chapter is free to view. This could advance the world of iphone film making by providing another attractive platform for the iphone film maker to market his or her material. If you want to be a film maker all you have to do is go out and shoot something everyday. You learn by doing the day to day work. Shooting your films, editing your short films. Posting them online and sharing them with friends. Thank you for visiting. Please take a moment to share this post with a friend.

The iPhone Feature Film

            The Iphone Feature Film

    This post is going to be short and dedicated to the first major feature film that has used smart phones to record a great deal of the footage. The film is titled The Bay. It was co-written and directed by the academy award winning director Barry Levinson.

    To have a film maker of this caliber deciding to shoot a motion picture using nothing but digital cameras and smart phones is going to be a game changer in the indie film world. Anyone of us with a little creativity can produce a feature using these devices.

    Here is the trailer for what many will consider the first major iPhone feature films.

The Bay Trailer:

    It will be in theaters and on demand very soon. I have seen the movie already and I can say that the best footage in the movie seems to have been shot using a smart phone. The blending of different kinds of devices used to record footage is very well done. Even the Skpe footage looks great. The Bay is a found footage film and that is the obvious place to begin with this type of film making, but the iPhone could easily be used to shoot a narrative feature length movie with the proper lighting and equipment.

    Okay that is it for today. I promised someone who emailed me that I would leave a video about a certain cell phone case. They have seen the ads on this site and wanted to know what it was all about.

    Thank you for visiting. Please tell a friend about this site and have a nice day.

                       

Filmmaking Resources

                iPhone Filmmaking Resources

    Since the whole filmmaking using a phone industry is still in its beginning stages the resources for those of us who are interested in this field is limited.

    There are a great many iPhone short films out there right now and a few
features in production at this moment. Today I would like to introduce you to
one such resource a channel dedicated to this form of filmmaking and I thought that I would post two of their short tutorials.





    As always you must keep in mind that you are still a film maker first. The rules do not change no matter what you use to capture an image. Your iPhone is almost equal in cost to most of the low priced camcorders that shoot footage at 24 frames per second. It is almost even in price to the Canon t2i a Dslr that has been used to shoot not only many shorts, but more and more features. If you are going to be a film maker then you are still going to have to take some time to learn about lighting and sound and quality acting. If you have the talent that little camera phone can not only produce quality footage, but if you are talented enough it can make your dreams come true.



  Good luck with your project. Remember to stumble us on stumbleupon, add us to your google plus and check out our advertisers. They are the ones who pay the bills for this blog to remain active.  Thank you and good luck.

                IPHONE And Film Apps


    You got your iPhone. You have tried to shoot your own little short film and it looks like a home video.

    What happened?

    You shot it without adding any film maker apps.

    That is okay. This can be fixed. The great thing about the iPhone is that there are tons of apps both cheap and not so cheap that can help you make the best iPhone film possible.

    The apps that you will select depend largely upon what you have in mind. I am going to assume that you want to shoot something that looks like a standard motion picture. This means that you want the footage that you record to be shot at 24 frames per second. This can be accomplished by adding an app named Filmic pro. This app will give you a few options depending upon the look you wish to achieve. Here is the basics of what Filmic pro is all about.

    Next you will need a color and or look correcting app. You will want this because most film makers either lighten or darken scene. Some scenes are grainier and some are crisper. This is done to aid with the visual story that you are trying to tell. This is done also with how you choose to light each scene, but after the filming is over you will want to have the ability to change the look of your film as much as possible. The best app for this is called Movie looks.    

        You will also want to keep track of how much money you are spending. You will be amazed at how much money can be spent shooting a five minute short if you do not budget carefully. This app is free and it is named Film Budget. Also get an app named Red Laser it is a barcode scanner. You can scan items and it will check to see if it is available anywhere online for a lower price.

    You are going to need an editing app. I would recommend that you use iMovie. You can edit your movie in phone with this. Understand that if you want to do a pro job of editing and color correction you should export your footage to your computer and use a higher class of editing equipment. Note that most Apple computers come with world class media editing software fully installed such as Final Cut Pro.

    Okay that is it for now. Remember to stumble us on Stumbleupon and add us to your Google plus.
    Thank you and good luck with your film