Horror films often WANT a degraded image. Being unable to see things clearly is scary.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
'28 Years Later' to Be First Blockbuster Movie Shot on iPhone
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yes, it is amazing, but Apple always compares it with a full frame camera. They show low resolution sample photos and hide the fact how much worse the camera is.
They better be using OIS... because I'm NOT going to a theater to watch a shakey-cam Cloverfield wannabe. Just sayin'
You mean to tell me that camera rig is easier to carry around and set up than it would be if one replaced the iphone with an actual camera body? I just do not believe that. Even the Canon cinema cameras are not that bulky and would have been a way better choice than Iphone. My opinion is the movie was going to be expensive to shoot and apple sunk a bunch of money into it for them to shoot it on iphone as a publicity stunt, nothing more. Heck, they could have used an R5C and gotten incredibly better resolution and video quality than the iphone.
feels like these big productions are just doing it for the publicity and funding from Apple, when its far easier just to use a normal rig. "Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn't Stop To Think If They Should"
Where does it say 28 Years is getting funding from Apple?
Quentin Tarantino seems to have a different opinion on the iPhone camera. Wonder whose opinion you value more? A close friend of mine is wrapping up his second movie which was all shot on iPads and iPhones. Not sure of the quality yet but his investors liked the script and idea enough to back it and none of the are Apple. Equipment is all preference. You’d be surprised by how many high budget films weren’t shot with $80k-$150k cameras. It’s 28 Years Later, it doesn’t need Apple PR to be successful. 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later are cult classics on their own standing. Why not wait until the finished product to start criticizing what it is or isn’t.
Totally agree. Oppenheimer was shot on IMAX black-and-white film. It won 7 Academy awards and includes
Best Cinematography, so there is that. People who think the camera quality being the difference are idiots. The type of camera dictates the style more than the ability to create an award winning product.
The original film used the tech as both a way to lower costs and to tell the story, as the cameras have a distinct look. Here, they're just dying a money grab and taking Apple's cash while shooting with iPhones that are setup with thousands of dollars extra equipment to try to imitate the look of a standard camera. The film itself will hopefully be great, but the "Shot on iPhone" aspect is not art, it's just a commercial.
With a budget of $75 million, Danny Boyle's "28 Years Later" will become the first major blockbuster movie to be shot on iPhone, WIRED reports.
Jodie Comer on the set of "28 Years Later" with an iPhone 15 Pro Max camera rig (right).
The upcoming post-apocalyptic British horror movie was shot over the summer using the iPhone 15 Pro Max as the principal camera, along with additional equipment such as aluminum cages and lens attachments. The filmmakers behind 28 Years Later apparently received technical assistance directly from Apple. 28 Years Later is the sequel to "28 Days Later" (2002) and "28 Weeks Later" (2007), which depict the aftermath of a zombie-style pandemic in the United Kingdom.
The original 28 Days Later movie was largely shot in 480p standard definition with a Canon XL-1 – a consumer-grade camcorder that wrote data to MiniDV tapes. This was partly due to the need to film complex scenes depicting an abandoned central London under very limited time constraints, where bulky traditional film cameras would have taken too long to set up. The unique shot-on-digital aesthetic subsequently became an iconic part of the movie, so the use of iPhones to shoot the latest addition to the series seems to pay homage to the original film's use of camcorders. The Oscar-winning cinematographer of the original movie, Anthony Dod Mantle, is also returning alongside Boyle.
Several smaller-scale movies have already been shot with iPhones, such as Sean Baker's "Tangerine" (2015) and Steven Soderbergh's "Unsane" (2018), but these films were limited-release, low-budget titles compared to the upcoming Boyle movie. 28 Years Later is expected to be the first of a new trilogy of films scripted by Alex Garland. The breakout star of the original movie, Cillian Murphy, is also expected to return. 28 Years Later is set for release on June 20, 2025.
Article Link: '28 Years Later' to Be First Blockbuster Movie Shot on iPhone
Btw, the linked article never states that this was the primary camera used, and other articles dispute this. It was just one type of camera used at some point. Macrumors seems to have misunderstood what "used for principal photography" means and made this a much bigger deal than it was.
It doesn't. People here are grasping at straws trying to find something, anything, to suggest it's a stunt where Apple can get some PR by handing out iPhones. And that the producer/director/cinematographers are just fine with doing something that could be at odds with their vision.
Just another way for people to slag Apple... every day of the year.
Where, anywhere does the article say Apple paid them? There is no benefit to making things up when most people can read the article properly.
Wow folks here are so grumpy. 28 Days Later was great fun, and Danny Boyle’s work is fantastic. He could use a Canon DV today and it’d still be a good movie.
In this respect, MR is like the rest of the internet - often filled with comments from people who have no interest in a fact-based discussion, but who would instead prefer to just make things up. Even if the only reason is to make strangers angry.
Apple is fooling its customers, once again. But, yes of course you can shoot a movie with an iPhone - but why should you shoot a movie with several $100 millions of production cost with an iPhone? And even if you mount special lenses to the phone, the sensor is too bad.
For a professional movie, you‘ll grab some RED cameras and you are good to go.
For a professional movie, you‘ll grab some RED cameras and you are good to go.
I always enjoyed the original 28 Days Later. Kind of a zombie thriller before zombie thrillers were in vogue. Hope this lives up to the original. With Boyle directing and Cillian Murphy I have high hopes for this film.
Do you have a source to an Apple PR page, or even one from the Director confirming that this was the intent? It also sounds like they used an unspecified action camera attached to animals for other clips. Is that going to be a PR stunt with whatever company made those?
What I have found is that they approached Apple, not the other way around, and that the support was with regards to technical assistance.
LinkDP Review via Wired said:
All we can do is speculate until the director or Apple discuss the making of the movie.
Do you have more details about Boyle’s money grab? How much Apple is paying them to use iPhones? That kind of thing?
Then iPhone 15 Pro is the "principal" camera here. There are probably a dozen other professional cameras also used on this shoot. Perhaps part of the iPhone usage is written into the narrative as the actors with their own little selfie cams for instance. When you shoot action films, especially shoestring budget ones, having little cameras rolling all the time is a saving grace for most editors that could not get enough coverage using only 1 primary camera that requires long setups. Unfortunately, it can also lead to weak storytelling for directors and editors that just want constant cutaways so it looks like something is always happening to keep the audience on edge. Using an iPhone on major motion pictures is a double-edged sword just like using any other tool.
The issue is that it is not about phones replacing DSLRs...
The issue is that "good enough" is where the bar is now. That is where the world is... good enough.
That movie that you wanted to like but hated? It still made millions (though maybe it wasn't profitable by some standards).
Crappy scripts, crappy effects, crappy mixing, crappy direction, crappy "pretty/famous/flavor of the month" actors... those movies still make money, maybe not as much as they thought but they made money.
And as much as cinema vox populi want to talk about the "esthétique" it is about the money it has always been about the money.
28 Days was shot with that video camera, and 28 Weeks was shot on super 16mm. (Neither of them had the camera written into the script, cloverfield/blair-witch style.) A newish iPhone can solidly outperform either of those cameras, even handheld without accessories. So I'd honestly worry that the film might look too good, and need to be degraded to match the aesthetic set by the previous films.
Whatever. The creators either know what they are doing, or they don't. But I'm still baffled as to why Apple doesn't take the simple and obvious step of adding bigger class and a camcorder form factor. The iPhone already does so much that "pro" cameras struggle with.
I am sure the iPhone will do great job considering it's size, but if you what to see a real pro digital motion picture camera check out the Red Komoda. www.red.com/komodo
I am currently watching the PBS series Big Cats 24/7 and they use the Red cameras with big Canon Lenses.
I am currently watching the PBS series Big Cats 24/7 and they use the Red cameras with big Canon Lenses.