Is this the beginning of a new wave of movies shot with an iPhone?
Steven Soderbergh has been vocal about his dissatisfaction with moviemaking. He has even gone as far as to “retire” from the industry all together. He then tried releasing a picture his own way, with last year’s Logan Lucky, but the film got lost in the shuffle. Soderbergh is now transitioning to a new direction. The future of film lies with the iPhone, and his new feature, Unsane, will prove his thesis.
Unsane features The Crown star Claire Foy as a woman who has been hospitalized against her will. She complains of being followed by a stalker that haunts her every waking moment, but the authorities say there is no one. Is she truly insane or has the stalker managed to infiltrate the very system that exists to protect her? Unsane co-stars include Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, and Amy Irving.
Watch the first trailer below.
The rise of filming on an iPhone is largely contributed to The Florida Project director Sean Baker, who shot his prior feature, Tangerine, with the Apple device. That was due to budgetary constraints rather than an overt way to change the system, but Soderbergh must have been inspired. He is the most prominent director to shoot on the format thus far, and from the looks of the Unsane trailer, it paid off. The footage is intense and showcases various shots we aren’t used to seeing in feature filmmaking.
During Sundance, in a conversation with Indiewire, Soderbergh explained how he believes shooting on the iPhone will change his work:
“I think this is the future. 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.”
When asked if all his future films would be shot on iPhone, he said, “I’d have to have a pretty good reason not to be thinking about that first…” We’ll soon find out if his gamble paid off as Unsane is scheduled to open in theaters on March 23rd.
Related Topics: Claire Foy, Steven Soderbergh, Trailers, Unsane
