Why I love shooting with small cameras

Mobility, powerful features and the fact they are always with you

Big unit, little unit on the set of "It's About Love"

This summer, we shot a feature film that was made using 2 different camera platforms, a bigger more traditionally cinematic camera, and an iPhone 5. In general, my experience up till then had been along the lines of “bigger cameras for bigger films and smaller cameras for smaller films.” In pairing up big and small cameras on the shoot of “It’s About Love” I was eager to move both camera sizes into parity on a bigger, more complex film.

There is a ton that I love about working with small cameras, and the next 3 films I am in pre-production on will be shot with an iPhone 6S+ as the main camera. It’s true that the 6S+ takes a big jump in terms of its videography abilities (like 4K resolution capture), but mostly I find that pocketable cinema cameras have some undeniably fun and powerful capabilities that lend themselves to making films of any size and scale. Here are a few things I love about working with little cameras:

1. You always have them with you. Some of my favourite films I have made have been shot on impulse, including many of my micro shorts. You can’t shoot stuff spontaneously without a camera, and always having one with you actually changes how you see the world around you. By being alert to filmable moments, you only have to reach in your pocket to capture them.
2. They are mobile and let you get in close to actors without being obtrusive. Yes, you can do this with bigger cameras, but there’s nothing like a little camera to let you float around in the scene like a butterfly, and change your shot based on instinct. A film like "Tangerine" shows how you can bring an audience right into the scene, by nimbly capturing what is happening in the moment.
3. They allow for new techniques, like “swipescaping” which is a term I coined to describe journeying through an arrangement of static objects with a small camera in ways that can support a narrative spine for a scene. I used this to good effect in the film “Deathbed Regrets.” Again, there’s nothing revolutionary about this except that a small camera lets you do it right here, right now.
4. You can bulk up a little camera with big camera accessories. While I resist this for all the reasons above, you can in fact make a big camera out of a little one if there is a valid cinematic reason to do so. There is a growing world of accessories like lenses, rigs, external mikes and other goodies that can make your smartphone look and feel like a big cinema camera. Just don’t start forgetting your camera at home, because you’ve left it embedded in all that bigger heavier gear! The camera that’s with you is the camera that shoots.

So those are a few of the things I love about shooting with little cameras. How about you? Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts and tips. But in the meantime, go make a movie!

---