Skip to main content

$1.99 iPhone app helps filmmaker win Oscar

searching for sugar manDirector Malik Bendjelloul picked up the Oscar for best documentary at the 85th Academy Awards in LA on Monday night for Searching for Sugar Man. To movie buffs, the award may not have come as too much of a surprise, as the film has already won a slew of prizes around the world. But what you might not know is that it’s become the first movie partly shot on an iPhone to win an Academy Award.

In a recent interview with CNN, Bendjelloul said he’d been shooting segments for the film using a Super 8 camera, but eventually the funds for his movie dried up, leaving the 35-year-old Swedish director in a bit of a pickle.

Related Videos

He only needed a few shots to complete the film so tried out the $1.99 8mm Vintage Camera app, which adds a filter to the footage to give a Super 8 effect. To his delight, the results were exactly what he was looking for.

Reviewing one of the sequences in the movie that he shot with the iPhone app, Bendjelloul commented, “It looks like real film, it really does. You can’t tell the difference.”

The vintage camera app will already be familiar to many of you; it’s been in and out of the charts for a couple of years now. But with a story like this attached to it, it’s sure to see sales go through the roof. Hongyu Chi, president of the China-based company behind the app, said prior to the Oscar win he was “thrilled” it had been used in Bendjelloul’s movie. Wonder how he’s feeling now….

Searching for Sugar Man is a movie about 70s musician Sixto Rodriquez, an American singer who, despite being a virtual unknown in his home country, became hugely successful in South Africa.

Of course, it’s not the first time a filmmaker has used  a smartphone to shoot all or part of a movie – in 2011, for example, South Korean director Park Chan-wook used a bunch of iPhone 4 devices for a 30-minute film called Night Fishing, while in the same year a Nokia N8 smartphone was used to shoot the world’s largest stop-motion animation.

[Image: CNN]

Editors' Recommendations

6 years later, the iPhone X still does one thing better than the iPhone 14 Pro
iPhone X.

I’ve been an iPhone user since the very beginning, starting with the original iPhone. You know, the one with the 3.5-inch display that was perfect at the time, making it super easy to use a phone with one hand? As the years go by, the iPhone — and every other smartphone out there — just get bigger and bigger. We now have phones that with almost 7-inch displays, and honestly, I don’t understand how anyone can comfortably use these giant phones — especially if you have smaller hands!

With the iPhone, we’ve gone from 3.5-inch to 4-inches, then 4.7-inches to 5.8-inches, and now the standard 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch of the iPhone 14/iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Plus/iPhone 14 Pro Max, respectively. I personally use an iPhone 14 Pro as my primary device, and while I have gotten used to the 6.1-inch size over the past few years, I still think it’s too big. In fact, the last perfect size iPhone was the iPhone XS with the 5.8-inch display ... and I really wish Apple would bring it back.
5.8 inches was a perfect middle ground

Read more
How to replace Siri with ChatGPT on your iPhone
Siri in action on an iPhone.

AI is all the rage these days, with ChatGPT seemingly taking over the world. No matter where you turn or look, there’s something about AI or ChatGPT being discussed online.

Read more
I love the Galaxy S23 — here are 5 things the iPhone still does better
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Apple iPhone 14 Pro

Samsung’s Galaxy S23 has arrived to the masses, and it’s one of the best Android phones you can get right now, especially the S23 Ultra. However, for those who don’t need all of the fancy bells and whistles, like the S Pen and 200MP main camera, the regular S23 is also plenty powerful for the average person, especially if you prefer smaller devices.

I’ve been using the Galaxy S23 for the past few weeks, and so far, my experience has been delightful. I know that it’s still early on in the year, but for me, the S23’s small size is perfect and comfortable. Android also does a lot of things better than iOS, like individual volume controls and notifications, for example. But I am still primarily using my iPhone 14 Pro — despite Apple having some big flaws, such as overprocessing images after you capture them.

Read more