Every year before the Spring Festival, Apple invites famous directors to use this generation of iPhones to shoot a short film to tell a story about China and the New Year.
In 2018, "Three Minutes" was directed by Peter Chan and shot on an iPhone
In 2019, "A Bucket" was directed by Jia Zhangke and shot with an iPhone The most simple props.
In 2020, " Daughter " was directed by Theodore Melfi and filmed with iPhone 11 pro. Zhou Xun played a female driver driving a taxi with her daughter in the film, and this is based on a real person. Things were adapted.
In 2021, " A Nian " was directed by Wang Ziyi and shot with iPhone 12 pro max. This is the first fantasy story in Apple's series of micro-movies. It tells the story of a mountain village girl who encounters the legendary monster "Nian" and becomes a friend with it. The story of a good friend.
In 2022, Zhang Meng directed and filmed "The Comeback" with an iPhone 13 pro. It tells the story of a frustrated and injured action actor who went home during the Chinese New Year and used his mobile phone to shoot a "Mars science fiction blockbuster" for the folks.
In 2023, Pengfei directed and filmed "Crossing the Five Passes" with an iPhone 14 pro. This is a story about a Peking Opera troupe and persistence. Although Pengfei is less qualified than the previous ones, this film is based on his personal opinion. The series is the best.
During the Spring Festival of 2024, Apple's New Year micro-movie is called "Little Garlic ". This is a story about a small town girl with super powers who lost herself after coming to a big city and finally found herself again. From the name to the story, it is very Chinese, but its director is Mark Webb, the director of "The Amazing Spider-Man", and it also stars Fan Wei.
"Little Garlic" tells a fantasy story. The protagonist is Xiao Wei, a girl with a "garlic nose". She has the ability to transform into anyone else at will. This ability accompanies her from her student days into society. the process of. Fan Wei stars as Grandpa, whose greatest specialty is making steamed buns. He is Xiao Wei's only relative in the film, and he is also the one who has been waiting at home for Xiao Wei to change back to himself. "Be yourself" is what this micro-movie wants to convey to the audience through a slightly fantasy plot design - under the guise of the Internet and social media, we are getting better and better at "changing" into others, but we often forget Be yourself.
The themes of this year’s movies are good, but they are somewhat acclimatized. For example, Xiaowei's family in the play is obviously in a small water town in the south of the Yangtze River, but his grandfather is good at making steamed buns - I can't say that it's completely wrong. I can only say that as a kid from the south of the Yangtze River, it seems that none of his elders can master making buns since he was a child. Such advanced skills as steamed buns, sweet and sour pork ribs, and braised hairy crabs are representative of “home-style” meals.
If this is just a lack of details, then the imperfect interpretation of the movie's theme and plot is even more regrettable. For example, the grandfather-grandson relationship between Grandpa and Xiaowei seems to show Grandpa's life mentor-type teachings on the surface, but in fact it is a very Hollywood-style fantasy of Chinese family relationships. The characters after Xiao Wei's transformation are more templated, and combined with the frequent jump editing, it makes people feel that this is more like a simple advertising film, rather than telling a serious story.
However, this time "Little Garlic" did successfully let people see the potential of the iPhone 15 pro in shooting.
was most impressed by the power of the sports mode. The behind-the-scenes video showed that the scene where the heroine ran away from the court was shot by the director running in front with his mobile phone, and the picture was still basically stable. If the previous sports mode was actually only suitable for the slight shaking of walking rhythm such as daily vlog shooting, then the current sports mode can be said to be a real "sports" mode.
The second is the expressiveness of the telephoto lens. There are many big scenes in the movie, such as the shooting of the buildings on the opposite bank in the Bund scene. This was all shot with the 5x telephoto lens of the iPhone 15pro. The final image quality and contrast were very good. There are also a lot of dark light environments in the movie, such as the disco section, which also shows the ability to shoot in dark light environments.
In addition, as an ultra-small shooting device, the iPhone once again demonstrated its flexible usage, greatly expanding the director's shooting possibilities. For example, using tape to tie a basketball to create some unexpected perspectives and shots. Of course, this is also a common advantage of all miniaturized shooting equipment. With the performance upgrades of small action cameras and mobile phones in the future, I believe more directors will add these unique perspectives to their works. Although mobile movies are still unable to enter theaters and become mainstream, thanks to the promotion of major mobile phone brands, they have been accepted by many film festivals.
