Daniel Haggett

London based Lighting Cameraman / DoP

This is a site for people who make a career from filming professionally, so why is there are post about an iphone on here?  You might be thinking this, but stay with me here.

The video below, caught my attention, but not because it was shot on an iPhone, but because the shot works, and I can't think of many other cameras that would achevie this specific look.

 

You could swing a go pro around in the same fashion and it would probably work, but this video was shot at 240fps, and so it had to be an iPhone.  Of course there are plenty of cameras that shoot 240fps, but you can't swing them around your head, well you can, but it isn't a good idea.

Being inventive like this is what get's your shots and films noticed.  Years ago, before stabilised gimbals were available, I shot a short promo for Nike in Brazil.  We filmed a scene with a DSLR rigged to a golf buggy.  The DSLR was cradled in some very thick elastic to help with stability.  We shot at 60fps and had a footballer dribble the ball towards the moving cart down the football field.  

Everyone that saw the promo would always ask "how did you get that shot?"  Back then it would normally only have been possible with a steadi-cam, which we didn't have the time for.  

This iphone video, is much more inventive that just using some elastic, the guy has actually made a sling in which the iPhone fits.  

I guess the thing for us all to take away and learn from this is to be inventive.  Doing things in a different way to everyone else, even for just one shot, really makes the audience sit up and take note.  

I have seen skiing shots taken from GoPros  on sticks looking down on the skier,  I have seen Gopros mounted on every part of the body, I have seen drone shots of skiers, but I have never before seen a camera rotating around the skier whilst he moves downhill.

The views on this video will be ridiculously high within days, and yet it was achevied with minimal budget, but just a lot of inventiveness.