iPhone Filmmaking Advice by Filmmaker Sean Baker

Photo by kaleb tapp on Unsplash

Film Courage: Sean, what came first, the decision to make the movie Tangerine or the decision to shoot on an iPhone?

Sean Baker, Filmmaker: The decision to make Tangerine came long before the decision to shoot on the iPhone.

Shooting on the iPhone was something that we eventually got to because when we started budgeting the film and looking at how we’re going to make this on the limited budget that we had, that option eventually arose. So I say the idea of Tangerine came long before.

Film Courage: And also to the beauty of the iPhone in being less conspicuous than using this [larger camera].

Sean: Right. I wish that I could say that I was going about this intentionally and I was going to embrace all the benefits that the iPhone would be giving us, but quite honestly a lot of those benefits were revealed to us while we were shooting and we just took advantage of them and then we made the most of what we had but it really started from a place of a budgetary constraint.