Phoebe Dynevor’s latest film, Inheritance, was shot entirely on an iPhone, a rather rare feat in the industry.
The movie follows Dynevor’s Maya, a lost soul thrust into a dangerous journey after learning that her father is a spy. Now a target, she’s forced to unravel new mysteries as she becomes tangled in a wide-reaching conspiracy.
Usually, feature film productions opt for incredibly sophisticated and expensive camera rigs to bring their stories to life. However, for Inheritance, director Neil Burger felt like the iPhone was the perfect choice for them.
Interestingly enough, the highly anticipated blockbuster 28 Years Later will also be shot on an iPhone—though it was kit-bashed with a variety of more intense lenses.
Inheritance Was Filmed Entirely on an iPhone—For Very Specific Reasons
“I Wanted to See the World As It Was.”
- The Direct: “One thing I noticed about this movie [is that] there’s a unique layer of authenticity to it. And I was reading about how you made that a reality with how it was filmed on location and in the moment. Can you speak to some of those crazy situations and [what] the crew went through to get that final product? Because what I was reading was kind of crazy.”
Neil Burger: Well, the whole idea for me was to shoot it—I wanted to see the world as it was. And often, when you go in with a film crew, you disrupt the world, and the world ends up looking at you. I wanted to be looking at the world. And I wanted to have our characters in a situation where they were really moving through the world.
So, if you shoot at an iPhone, it means you can walk through a crowded Cairo market, and nobody looks at you. Because, for all they know, it’s just some friend shooting their friend with an iPhone. There were no boom mics. There was no lighting. So again, not to do it as a gimmick or but to do it as access. What it enabled us to do, for example, was to shoot on airplanes, in flight, full dialog scenes.
And we shot with a very guerrilla crew. Phoebe’s character took the real journey that her character takes. She went from New York to Cairo to Delhi to Seoul, and then back to New York in that order. And we went with her, and we stayed back from her, and just the cameraman with her, with a tiny crew. So, we would be on an airplane, and we’d be stealing the shot. They’d be talking. But in order to get that, you couldn’t do this sort of conventional filmmaking language of, like, well, it’s a wide shot, and then it’s an over-the-shoulder shot and a close-up.
So, we developed this kind of, this sort of caught, live, kind of feel to it, where we were, you know, this has sort of a, you are there quality to it, and so that became the aesthetic of the movie throughout.
Phoebe Dynevor Explains the Core of Her Character, Maya, in Inheritance
“[She’s] Lost Her Sense of Self… There’s This Vulnerability About Her…”
- The Direct: “When it comes to your character of Maya, what would you say is you know the core of her, and how did you work to find it yourself to bring her to life through your performance?”
Phoebe Dynevor: I think the thing with Maya is, when you at the beginning, she’s spent a lot of her time in the last year or so looking after her mother. She’s very much lost a lot of her friends, lost her sense of self, and so when she’s confronted by her father, who she hasn’t seen in years. There’s this vulnerability about her, which makes her a great target for him.
- The Direct: “With this film, what do you feel was the biggest lesson you learned at the end of the day with your time on it?”
Dynevor: I think it was very joyful in the sense of having to stay in character and not having to wait around with the setups. Because a lot of acting on films is just waiting around, really. And there was none of that on this. It was so go, go, go. I was never bored for one second. So that was the joy of it. And what did I learn? That you can shoot a great movie on an iPhone, which is kind of crazy.
- The Direct: “You guys filmed in a lot of locations, like you’re mentioning, New York and Cairo. What was your favorite location to shoot in?”
Dynevor: Oh, I loved being in India. I think my favorite [was] being at the pyramids when no one else was there was incredible, and the sun was setting. And it was just our crew, and everywhere else was empty, and there was this real, like spirituality, about it. It was kind of wild.
Watch the full interview here:
Inheritance lands in theaters on January 24.
This post was originally published on here
