Sometimes the creative urge, or a necessity, arises when it’s least convenient. While planning a shoot with a new client named Jake Sokol at his company, Your Shirts Ink, we were talking about the style one particular video would take, the one featuring his embroidery machine. I was explaining my views on shallow depth of field, wide angle lenses and how i would edit, when it dawned on me to take out my phone and show him. I opened up the Filmic Pro app on my relatively new (purchased in June) iPhone 8, and was showing Jake some of the features.
I’d had issues with my previous iPhone 8 not ever having enough memory, so I was thinking this experiment might end abruptly. But as I kept shooting, the shots kept looking so good that I wanted the next one. Then I started imagining how the video would cut together to music, and I got excited about the possibilities. So I shot little sections, knowing that I’d have to jump cut through the stitching process anyway.
The shooting continued this way until the entire logo was stitched onto the shirt. I dropped my phone into my back pocket and was done.
In reality I knew I was going to reshoot the process using my Sony a7III and a6500 and a variety of lenses. But I was curious enough, and impressed enough with the images from Filmic Pro, that when I got back to my computer I imported it into Premiere and started assembling a cut.
I went onto Soundstripe to find a nice music track to cut to, and boy did I luck out. Soundstripe had just uploaded a collection of tracks that were inspired by Stranger Things, the Netflix show. Find the collection under Playlists, titled Stranger Synths 3. I found a track with the appropriate energy, a mechanized, retro, creepy vibe and suddenly the meaning of the sewing machine came to life. It’s like the machine was a sentient being, creating its own image on the shirt, some drippy lizard character in cold blue hues.

So there were three takeaways to this iPhone video exploratory:
1: Always take time searching for the right music, because it can transform the footage into something unexpected and kinda wonderful.
2: Don’t wait to have the “right equipment” to create. Just work with what you have handy.
3: Filmic Pro is a beast. It turned my iPhone into something more like a DSLR, with the ability to change focus points, change frame rates and lock in on color and focus.

In the future I’m going to make plans to work with the app more often, because it give you control over the camera in your phone. And you can never practice controlling the camera enough.

I’ve included the final product that I intended to make using DSLRs, as a comparison. Take from it what you will. I find things to like about both of them.