Steven Soderbergh says he only wants to shoot his movies on iPhones

IndieWire, on Soderbergh’s upcoming movie, Unsane:

Taking a page from Sean Baker’s “Tangerine,” Soderbergh shot the whole movie on an iPhone. While Baker has said he used a phone instead of traditional cameras due to budgetary constraints, Soderbergh said he was so impressed with the quality of iPhone cinematography that he would likely continue to use phones to shoot his movies going forward.

And:

“I think this is the future,” he said. “Anybody going to see this movie who has no idea of the backstory to the production will have no idea this was shot on the phone. That’s not part of the conceit.”

The filmmaker has experimented with digital cinematography for years, going back to 2002’s “Full Frontal,” but found that the iPhone offered unparalleled quality. “People forget, this is a 4k capture,” said Soderbergh, who was long a passionate advocate for the high-end RED cameras. “I’ve seen it 40 feet tall. It looks like velvet. This is a gamechanger to me.”

Soderbergh doesn’t need to scrimp and save on his movies. He’s had enough big box office success (Erin Brockovich, Oceans 11/12/13) that he can do pretty much as he pleases. The fact that he can get what he wants from iPhone says a lot.

It kind of blows my mind to think that a director of some renowned would choose to film using his phone. How far we’ve come.