Watch how the Ichi the Killer director was able to use the iPhone 15 Pro to turn a manga into a 19-minute short film. An adaptation of a manga story by the popular Japanese manga artist Osamu Tezuka, “Midnight” tells a simple story really about a late-night taxi driver (played by Kento Kaku) who offers to help those who need a lift (so to speak) on the nighttime streets of Tokyo. And, on one night in particular, he offers assistance to a woman (Konatsu Kato) who is in a battle with a local gang led by an evil boss (Yukiyoshi Ozawa).
The film itself bounces between black-and-white vignettes and action-packed sequences filmed on the neon-lit streets of Tokyo, offering a nice contrast of the iPhone 15 Pro’s cinematic range. It also features plenty of Miike’s hallmarks including fight sequences, car chases, and plenty of weird characters.
To go along with the short film, Apple has also released a cool behind-the-scenes featurette that shows just how Miike was able to bring the project to life, and more specifically, how he was able to shoot the entire film on the iPhone 15 Pro.
You can see in the video that the iPhone 15 Pro handles a lot of the low-light and fast-action sequences quite well. Using Apple ProRes LOG also allows for more flexibility in the edit, so a lot of the work could be done there to grade and balance the footage out in post.
Wow there’s a name I haven’t heard in awhile. Sadly this just seems like an ad for apple. I can’t comment on the video because the website is garbage.
The short film was commissioned by Apple, but I thought it was interesting.
Here’s an article on indywire and here’s Midnight on youtube if that helps.
Thanks for the link. It’s impressive for a cell phone but the darks don’t look good enough for movie quality. At least not for a movie taking place at night.
@Sir_Kevin it looks great… on my cellphone. I should take a look at it on a much bigger screen.