How to make a Hollywood film with just the phone in your pocket

We’ve all heard about people shooting a hit feature on a smartphone, but can you really do it and, even if you do, will anybody want to watch it? Steven Cutts reports

Steven Soderbergh has spoken of the liberation that came with shooting his movie ‘Unsane’ on an iPhone, which garnered convincing reviews (Bleecker Street)

In the spring of 2019 I flew into Cannes ready for what was to become my third trip to the eponymous film festival. Stepping off the plane with my usual heady optimism, I agreed to share a taxi from the airport with an eager young filmmaker from India. Raj had just shot a feature-length documentary on an iPhone XS and neither of us had any money. Chatting on the back seat, I wished him luck, assuming he wouldn’t get anywhere. Two or three days later I bumped into him again, this time at the Marche Du Film. He had just sold his documentary for $90,000.

And that got me thinking. Maybe we’re too hung up on the actual kit. We’ve all heard about people shooting a hit feature on a smartphone, but can you really do it and, even if you do, will anybody want to watch it?

In fact, it is possible and it’s already been done: 2015 was the breakthrough year for smartphone movies, with the alternative feature Tangerine being shot entirely on an iPhone 5S. These days, the 5S sounds a bit basic, not to mention outdated, but at the time director Sean Baker managed to secure a cinematic release. I remember watching it in London with a bunch of wannabe directors, all of them convinced they could shoot on a smartphone.