‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Director Jon M. Chu Shoots Beautiful Short Film Using Only an iPhone XS Max

Jon M Chu Luis Rosado Somewhere

Somewhere, someone is practicing.

To test out the camera functionality brand new iPhone XS Max, the folks at Wired gave one to director Jon M. Chu of Crazy Rich Asian to shoot as he saw fit. The resulting short film entitled “Somewhere” features freestyle dancer Luis Rosado practicing his moves over and again inside his graffitied studio at night. Chu told Wired that he shot at night without any special equipment on hand, using only the fluorescent bulbs of the studio as his light source. Despite these challenges, the resulting footage beautiful, clear and vivid.

I had literally zero equipment. I see a lot of samples of iPhone videos, and sometimes they use different lenses or professional lights. I didn’t have any of that. …I knew those bright fluorescents were in there. When I’m pushing at 240, you can see the light noise…You can see the colors, they really pop. I did some shots in the daytime that didn’t make it into the movie, and the daylight images felt a little cooler. But shooting at night, the video warms up. You can adjust the colors however you want, but I was shooting with the defaults.

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple was really impressed by the film.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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