The Smartphone Film Iceberg Theory
Why does it cost $75 million dollars to make a movie shot with iPhones?
Why does it cost $75 million dollars to make a movie shot with iPhones? Why would you invest millions of dollars to shoot on a phone that many indies are using to shoot films on a mere micro-fraction of that amount of funds?
Have you heard about the iceberg theory in journalism?
When you hear a new story, you’re only hearing the tip of the iceberg. It’s your job as a journalist to find the tip and then dive underneath it. That’s where the “real” story is. I’ve written about this concept before because it’s one that most journalists live by. And we should all be aware of it.
Yesterday I had a long day at an important meeting. I came back to work and finally was able to come back to the social feeds, to find out the big news of the day for mobile filmmakers.
“28 Years Later: Danny Boyle’s New Zombie Flick Was Shot on an iPhone 15” wired.com
Everyone was super excited. I’ve been here several times.
Sean Baker’s “Tangerine” got headlines in 2015 for shooting the entire feature on an iPhone, or prior to that, in 2013, “Searching for Sugar Man” by Malik Bendjelloul won an Oscar at the Academy Awards for best documentary and a scene had been shot with an iPhone. Or wait, who can forget Steven Soderbergh with “Unsane” in 2018 and then “High Flying Bird” with Netflix in 2019.
In this story I share my answer to the $75M question: why so much?