While there’s never been a sure fire way to win work and sustain a living as a photographer or film maker, and particularly not today given how much change we are seeing, having your own unique vision can help set you apart from the crowd. Young film maker Paul Trillo has shown time and again how an interesting perspective can separate him and his work from the pack. After watching his recent innovative short, you'll likely never be able to look at your phone in the same way again.
Paul has just released “The Life And Death Of An iPhone”, a film he shot and edited entirely on a – you guessed it – iPhone, that shows us what our lives look like from it’s rather unique perspective. Even a year or so back it would never have occurred to me that we could edit video easily on our phone, and now apps like Vimeo’s Cameo are here to prove otherwise, which was the client for Paul in this piece.
The result is a fascinating reflection on what our lives have become, as we find ourselves physically and emotionally tethered to a device that didn’t even exist a decade ago.
I spoke briefly with Paul about the concept and how he went about producing the piece…
From this initial idea, Paul began to storyboard the concept out and give it structure:
One of the key narrative elements he seizes upon so well – and which keeps the story flowing – is the almost seamless viewing experience of masking the cuts between different scenes. He mentioned how this idea came about:
For those of you thinking about shooting your own mobile based film, the process was pretty straightforward from what Paul outlined:
It definitely works – by intentionally keeping it looking like phone footage (which of course, is exactly what it is), it makes it that much more believable and immersive. If this had been higher end footage captured from an dedicated camera, it never would have been as believable.
What’s fascinating is that the whole piece was edited by Paul on his iPhone. Given how much screen real estate most editors prefer, with many using multiple monitor set ups, this must have been incredibly frustrating at times.
Where does Paul see the future for mobile film making and editing?
I’m personally not about to give up Premiere just yet but as someone who has been editing video since the late 90s, this definitely feels like a time of unprecedented change for editing and video content creation. Last month was the first time I actually bothered to edit some video in iMovie on my phone – and it wasn’t actually too bad an experience.
What do you guys think? Can you see yourself editing your photos or even video on this go like this or will it be more of a novelty for quick “stories” like Snapchat and other short form, immediate content creation? Post your thoughts below.
UPDATE - for those emailing asking about the lenses used for this, you can see more detail on the Moments lens range for iPhone here
Special thanks / Images courtest of [Paul Trillo]