Jonathan Glazer Considered Shooting Under The Skin Entirely With iPhone Cameras
These days, "shot on iPhone" isn't just an Apple marketing line, it's a point of pride among filmmakers who've used the ubiquitous piece of tech to shoot their latest movie. It makes a certain statement in its eschewing of the industry standard gear — like the director wants to justify their standing as a filmmaker by showing they can make a good movie without fancy equipment. Of course, the film still has to actually be good in order for the trick to work.
Luckily, we've had a few decent efforts in the iPhone movie sphere. There was 2015's "Tangerine," which director Sean Baker shot almost entirely on an iPhone 5S (with the help of some anamorphic lenses and an upgraded camera app). Then a more high-profile example came in the form of Steven Soderbergh's "Unsane," which used an iPhone 7 Plus to capture what would ultimately prove to be a bit of an anticlimax of a movie. Still, it kept in the public eye the trend of directors turning to handheld tech to capture their stories.
But before Soderbergh likely even considered the notion of shooting an entire movie on a smartphone, Jonathan Glazer — the idiosyncratic director of "Sexy Beast" and innumerable music videos — was mulling the idea way back in 2013.
Capturing unadorned reality
"Under the Skin," loosely adapted from Michel Faber's novel, is Glazer's attempt to grapple with profound questions about the nature of being human from the point of view of an alien played by Scarlett Johansson. Quite a grandiose premise it would seem, but the film's scenes evoke more of a small-scale indie feel than that of a sci-fi blockbuster. Much of that is down to the fact that Glazer employed small hidden cameras to allow Johansson to interact with members of the Glasgow public without giving away that they were part of the film.
The result is a truly uncanny, and often unsettling tone that permeates the entire film. But in conceiving of how to best capture those truly spontaneous moments, Glazer revealed to Slant Magazine how he initially considered using iPhones. "At one point, we talked about shooting on iPhones," he shared. "With the aesthetic of this film, I was very much after something unadorned ... it had to be without affectation, it had to just be the world as it is."
Unfortunately, it seems Apple's smartphone just wasn't quite up to the task. Glazer explained that because the film relied so heavily on creating a sense of unadorned reality, he and his team ended up building a camera to match their exact needs. That commitment to getting the perfect tool for the job makes sense considering the director spent the best part of a decade developing "Under The Skin."
The iPhone is becoming a legitimate filmmaking tool
With the rapid advancements in tech over the last couple of decades, it's no wonder smartphones have become legitimate tools in the filmmaking process. Even way back in 2011 "The Avengers" director of photography admitted to shooting some scenes on an iPhone, and that was in the age of the iPhone 4. Nowadays, we've got Kathryn Bigelow and Greig Fraser waxing lyrical about the latest models and how they're sure to "change the language of cinema in a very positive way."
And in some ways, they already have. Baker reaped the benefits of saving on gear in order to spend more of his limited budget on locations and other expenses. And even Soderbergh seemed to be impressed by the iPhone as a filmmaking tool, celebrating the way the tech enabled him to "put a lens anywhere I wanted in a matter of seconds."
Had things been different, Jonathan Glazer might have been able to lay claim to being part of that evolution. And no doubt he would have done an exceptional job utilizing the smartphone considering the deft camera work that made it into the undeniably gorgeous "Under The Skin." Perhaps if Glazer ever makes another movie he might finally make the iPhone leap. But it's been a couple of years since talk of him working on an adaptation of Martin Amis' novel "The Zone Of Interest" made the rounds. Here's hoping more news surfaces soon.