Go Beyond Calls: Shoot It With Your Phone

Claire Foy onset of 'Unseen'

Have a great content idea and a limited budget why not consider using your smartphone?

There have been hundreds of movies, skits and music videos shot entirely on smartphones, like Tristan Pope's 'Romance in NYC' movie (2014), Sean Baker's 'Tangerine' movie (2015), Steven Soderbergh’s 'Unsane' movie (2018). Chance The Rapper’s ‘How Great’, Lady Gaga’s ‘Stupid Love’, Selena Gomez’s ‘Lose You To Love Me’ music videos were all captured on a mobile phone.

Today 90% of world mobile phone productions are camera enabled, with more than two thirds accommodating at least a 32G Secure Digital (SD) card, thereby storing 20 to 50 minutes of recorded content depending upon the phone's pixel size per frame. A Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) report released in March 2019 said Nigeria had 114,725,357 million mobile internet data subscribers as at February 28, 2019. Considering that people here use more than one Subscriber Identification Module (SIM), we can say that isn't staggering when divided into three and match with Nigeria’s' estimated 200m population. Barely 40% of those internet subscribers use high resolution camera phones, suggesting that, as difficult as it is for a young individual filmmaker to purchase or rent digital single lens reflex (DLSR) cameras, the same goes to acquiring high resolution camera phones which can be expensive too but encompasses diverse tools like microphone, camera, editing application, making calls, writing your scripts etc in one device.

Meaning, it is wiser to buy an expensive but quality smartphone good enough to start shooting your films than just get a DLSR camera that will be almost same price giving the hash economic state. Consequently, from NCC stats stated above if you don't have a smartphone capable of quality shots, you know someone who has one, assuming we could explore them to creative usage in place of high cost (for rent) DLSR cameras, wouldn't that be cost effective? You are very likely reading this on a smartphone.

Shooting on phone is seamless as shooting on traditional digital cameras

Academy award winning Hollywood filmmaker Steven Soderbergh once said "shooting on smartphone has become a choice not an option". Just like when you hire a DLSR camera you need lenses, tripod, batteries, and other gears, same thing applies to shooting on smartphones, it might seem little different like lite equipment, cheaper and easier to set up, move around, but it get you the same picture quality a Canon 5d will give you, it is certainly a fascinating experience to try out. You should be prepared for shaky, noisy shots if you are doing handheld you might get those a lot, this doesn't necessarily mean bad shot, it might just work for a scary, trembling, falling or speed motion scene, but using non mechanical grip, gimbles and smartphone tripods will help you stabilize shots.

Shooting on smartphones is fast evolving around the world, smartphones are shooting on not just 4k but 8k. Yes you got that right, a recent joint partnership between a popular smartphonea manufacturers and a giant streaming platform saw the arrival of 8ks. There are custom made external camera lenses and specific editing tools now for smartphones. What is more exciting is that even without any of these gears you can shoot a movie with daylight using your inbuilt phone mic.

Where it all started

What the makers of Sony Ericsson W900i didn't include in their user manual was that someone somewhere in Africa someday would go on a wild goose chase to shoot a whole film with it. The first full length film on record to start the “shot entirely on a phone” claim was Aryan Kaganof's 2008’s 'SMS Sugar Man'.

Awards and Festivals

Festivals have been created for films shot on mobile phones, some of which include the Mobile Motion Film Festival (MoMo Filmfest), International Smartphone Short Film Festival (Cinefest) etc. Award shows have also created categories for films shot on mobile phones, like Sean Baker's 'Tangerine' (2015) winning Audience Best Film Award amongst many others.

Cost reduction

Still on the subject of Sean Baker's 'Tangerine', the entire production budget cost $100,000 as compared to Paul Weitz's 'Grandma' (2015) with a budget of $600,000. Same comedy, same industry, similar characters, similar locations and same year of production but wide different budgets margins. A clear example that smartphone cinematography is viable and cost effective.

The gains of this for Nollywood

According to Bloomberg, Nigeria’s' economy is one of many struggling with a staggering number of youths untapped creativity. Meanwhile more than 60% of Nigeria’s' estimated 200m population consist of youths with an average of two out of every five youths more likely to either toll the music line or the film industry, making creative industry highly congested with fewer opportunities. This is why waiting for big budget or some high-tech crew to launch your career might seem herculean. Hence the need to utilize this easily affordable, cheap and simple creative style of unveiling your creative ingenuity.

For the experienced and novice film makers alike perhaps, it is time to experiment with smartphone cinematography and if you already are, we would love to hear from you.