We already know that the iPhone is a versatile piece of kit with a powerful camera capable of capturing highly impressive video.
That quality, coupled with the phone’s small size compared to conventional movie cameras, has been inspiring a growing number of filmmakers to use Apple’s handset for at least some of the shots in their grand productions.
Take Danny Boyle, the British director behind the 28 horror trilogy about a deadly virus outbreak and its aftermath. For the most recent installment, 28 Years Later, Boyle used a range of cameras, including three special rigs kitted out with iPhones.
One had eight iPhones and could be easily carried by one person, another had 10 iPhones attached, and the largest had 20.
“There’s an incredible shot in the second half [of the film] where we use the [20-camera rig], and you’ll know it when you see it,” Boyle told IGN in a recent interview. “It’s quite graphic but it’s a wonderful shot that uses that technique, and in a startling way that kind of kicks you into a new world rather than thinking you’ve seen it before.”
The acclaimed director likens the 20-camera rig to “basically a poor man’s bullet time,” a reference to the classic bullet-dodging scene in The Matrix where time appears to slow down.
“It gives you 180 degrees of vision of an action, and in the editing you can select any choice from it, either a conventional one-camera perspective or make your way instantly around reality, time-slicing the subject, jumping forward or backward for emphasis,” Boyle said, adding that as 28 Years Later is a horror movie, “we use it for the violent scenes to emphasize their impact.”
The director said he also likes the rig because “for a moment, the audience is inside the scene, the action, rather than classically observing a picture.”
28 Years Later hits screens on June 20, allowing fans to dive back into the chaos, while also discovering Boyle’s skill at deploying the iPhone as a moviemaking tool.
