Anorapicked up six Academy Award atlast nighttime ’s awards ceremonyin Los Angeles , include Best Picture , Best Actress for Mikey Madison , and a record - breaking four accolade for its music director Sean Baker ( Best Director , Best Original Screenplay , Best Editing and Best Picture as a producer on the plastic film ) . But few people might roll in the hay his breakout motion-picture show , Tangerine , was shot on an iPhone a decade years ago .
Anorais Baker ’s biggest achiever so far , an indie smasher made on a budget of around $ 6 million . That may seem low compared to that of mainstream Hollywood intersection , but it ’s a lot more than the $ 100,000 that financedTangerine , the moving picture that first bring Baker to the attention of critics and film - goers at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival . Like many of Baker ’s films , includingAnora , its principal characters are sex prole , portrayed sympathetically and as real hoi polloi , confront the world of the world they ferment in .
We interviewed Baker back in August of 2015 about how he shot the moving picture on an iPhone 5s , one of the first filmmakers to use Apple ’s nomadic phone to make a feature article film . Below is our conversation with the filmmaker , from when comparatively few were aware of his talents .
Mickey O’Hagan and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in Tangerine.
Mickey O’Hagan and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in Tangerine .
exposure courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
Tangerineis a movie so brilliant and real that you feel like you ’re walking the street of Los Angeles with its chief character . But Baker did n’t habituate an expensive rig — he used his iPhone 5s to direct the movie , one of the first to do so . High - close iPhone video yield is much more common now , but in 2015 it was virtually unheard of — the iPhone did n’t even get dark mode until the iPhone 11 four years later .
Mickey O’Hagan and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in Tangerine.
These daylight Baker is using 35 mm film to make Oscar success , but in 2015 , he was using a smartphone and a few unwashed filmmaking tip and tricks to create his visual sense . Back in 2015 , we interviewed Baker about how he deplumate it off and what equipment amateurish filmmakers can apply to turn their iPhone picture into Sundance pic ( edited for length and clarity ):
Macworld: Was the decision to shootTangerineon an iPhone a financial decision or a creative one?
Baker : It really started as a financial decision . We were stuck with a very stringent budget , and I was exploring many different alternative . I add up across a Vimeo channel that focused on iPhone experiments . I was very impressed . Then I find the Kickstarter campaign forMoondog Labsthat allow you fritter away in reliable scope widescreen ratio , and that ’s what convert me as a filmmaker that it was not only function to write us a ton of money but would make it possible . The iPhone 5s made it to a item where the camera was unspoilt , the resoluteness was up there . This anamorphic adapter told me it could be elevated to a cinematic story .
Your iPhone video looks nothing like my iPhone video. Did the footage require extensive post-production work?
We definitely treat the film in post - output . We really oversaturated the colors . That was a purposeful matter for the aesthetic . The timber is there . The resolution is already there . The iPhone in junction with the Filmic Pro app , the resolution is HD timber . This was more about setting a vogue . Like any other motion picture , we want it to be color - correct properly and professionally .
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mickey O’Hagan in Tangerine
What were the disadvantages of shooting on an iPhone?
Because it ’s such a minor lens of the eye , there ’s essentially a very extremely deep depth of battleground , if you’re able to even call it a depth of field . Everything is in focus . If you have your script in front of the television camera , your mitt will be in centering as well as 10 nautical mile down the apparent horizon . That ’s a look we ’re not really used to in cinema . We ’re used to having a shallow depth of field of view . Once you get past that , you may accept that it ’s a unlike look . There were no disadvantage in term of the workflow . Once we got the footage off the iPhone at night in iTunes , we ’d back up our raw files and transcode it so it was easier to edit in Final Cut Pro . It was as easy as redact any other piece of media .
You worked with a lot of acting newcomers forTangerine. Do you think using an iPhone to shoot had an effect on their performances?
There ’s always this excrescence , this 1 - workweek extrusion where the first - time worker have to get used to the fact that there ’s a television camera in their face . It takes them about a week to get comfortable . In this compositor’s case , because we ’re basically using a communication gimmick that everyone owns , that did n’t factor in this time . The intimidation factor was off the table from the beginning .
Mya Taylor in Tangerine
Were you in touch with Apple at any point during the process of making or distributing the movie?
We have n’t had a terrific amount of communication with them , but we did do some Apple Store talks and they were dainty enough to give phones to the cast .
Would you shoot another movie on your phone?
Right now , no , but who eff down the line ? I like to switch it up every fourth dimension , and of course , I ’m still a fan of film in cosmopolitan and I desire to shoot on celluloid when it ’s still useable . Even in the year and a half since we dash , Filmic Pro has advanced to 2 K , which is doubled the resoluteness we capture , so it ’s amazing the technological advances that happen in such a short period of time . In a year from now , I might be stage with options that make it quite attractive .
Can any amateur filmmaker achieve the look ofTangerinewith their iPhone?
I think so . I ’m not going to say I did anything especial . There were very basic measure we took that can be achieved by anybody . We did apply professional auditory sensation . vernal filmmakers interested in doing this , do n’t believe you’re able to get out with using immortalize sound on the iPhone . You have to commemorate it on an individual basis .
Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in Tangerine
Tangerine can be observe onTubi .
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mickey O’Hagan in Tangerine
Mya Taylor in Tangerine
Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in Tangerine
