Some Scenes In The Avengers [Not] Filmed On an iPhone [Updated]

Friday October 21, 2011 3:36 pm PDT by Jordan Golson

Updated: It turns out that Seamus McGarvey was misquoted. From The Hollywood Reporter:

"I was talking about how up and coming film makers have access to a whole range of new technologies which expand our options as filmmakers. I mentioned that the iPhone and the Canon 5d Mk2 were devices currently used on many Hollywood productions. I used the Canon on some shots on Marvel's The Avengers movie," he stated to THR. "Unfortunately, this was edited to read that I shot some of the film with the iPhone. This is not true."

The original story follows:

The iPhone 4 has a great camera built-in -- but it is good enough to film a movie? According to cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, who worked on the upcoming Avengers movie, the iPhone works just fine as a cinematic instrument. In an interview with the Irish Film & Television Network:

The beauty of photography or cinema is that you make every choice based on the content at hand. On The Avengers, I did a couple of shots on the iPhone and they are in the movie. In fact, they are in the trailer! I understand that sometimes there is no choice and you have to go for the cheapest option, but if you are limited for choice, you can still make poignant decisions that will effect the look of the film.

McGarvey gave no details about exactly which shots in the trailer were taken with an iPhone. It's a testament to the iPhone and McGarvey's abilities as a cinematographer that we can't figure it out.

Watch The Avengers trailer on Apple's movie trailers website.

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

mrsir2009

Posted: 8 months ago

Unless he had an early release 4S, that means there will be 720p scenes in the movie, which might stand out on the 1080p Blu-ray release...

Not on my TV they won't :cool:

Rating: 12 Positives / 0 Negatives

chrono1081

Posted: 8 months ago

Take that, camera snobs/elitists!

This actually. Lighting is far more important than resolution, but you can't tell that to n00b photogs, they want the latest and greatest hardware when they can't even fully utilize its capabilities.

Rating: 11 Positives / 1 Negatives

Xenc

Posted: 8 months ago

Hmm, the DP's facebook status has since clarified that he did not shoot any scenes with an iPhone..."just to clarify! I didn't shoot any scenes on the avengers on an iPhone"

It could be believed the interviewer meant to say the canon 5D.

I always write iPhone 4 when I mean to write Canon 5D. Easy typo to make.

Rating: 8 Positives / 0 Negatives

GFLPraxis

Posted: 8 months ago

Unless he had an early release 4S, that means there will be 720p scenes in the movie, which might stand out on the 1080p Blu-ray release...

Rating: 9 Positives / 1 Negatives

Will do good

Posted: 8 months ago

wow. I'm sure the iphone is good, but I'll credit the DP/cameraman.

Rating: 7 Positives / 0 Negatives

scottrichardson

Posted: 8 months ago

Unless he had an early release 4S, that means there will be 720p scenes in the movie, which might stand out on the 1080p Blu-ray release...

Not entirely - There's oodles of 1080p blurays out there that dont come close to saturating the resolution detail of 1080p due to camera MTF and focus. Only if the cameraman can fully focus the camera, and it is 3k, 4k or 5k, will you get a fully detailed 1080p image. Most of the time the actual visible resolution is somewhere around 720p. Yes there's 1020 x 1080 pixels on screen, but the image is so soft it could as easily be a focused 720p image scaled up.

Scott

Rating: 7 Positives / 1 Negatives

MagnusVonMagnum

Posted: 8 months ago

It's nice to know they're shooting movies with the lowest quality crap imaginable. 720p for a MOVIE that will play in theaters? This stuff should be filmed either with actual film or in UltraHD (4320p) so that future generations will have a high quality transfer available to them (we will not stay at 1080p forever, especially for high-end home theater and the actual cinema). It's like looking back now at certain TV shows filmed in NTSC. You cannot make HD transfers from NTSC. You're permanently stuck with garbage whereas and old show like Hogans Heroes or even classic movies like Casablanca are easy to transfer into HD versions since they were made on film. I know some people think 1080p is the best thing since sliced bread, but people are going to look back a couple of decades from now and see 1080p the same way we now see 480p.

Rating: 6 Positives / 1 Negatives

mrsir2009

Posted: 8 months ago

My god. That is horrible!

Are you dissing my Philips Matchline? :mad:

Rating: 5 Positives / 0 Negatives

lamar0607

Posted: 8 months ago

Rating: 5 Positives / 0 Negatives

isoMorpheus

Posted: 8 months ago

These three scenes?