Movie filmed on a smartphone

But it still cost half a million bucks

I heard there was a movie, a feature film---a feature, anyway. It was the first feature to be shot on a smartphone.

The movie is called Olive, it features Gena Rowlands, and it cost $425,000.

The guy thought Nokia would put up some money for the production, but they weren't interested.

But anyway, it puts the lie to this idea that movies will be dirt cheap what with digital video. But that's only on movies where the cost of filmstock was the primary expense. Although there are other things.

I read an article long ago. They were talking about a made-for-TV movie, shot on video, filmed on a cruise ship. They were out at sea during the shooting. Had it been shot on film, there would have been no way to view dailies.

Now that I think about it, concerned studio executives were worried about the insane amount of film Michael Cimino shot on the movie, The Deer Hunter. He explained that they were in the jungles in the Philippines. He had to shoot lots of coverage because they couldn't process the film and see what they had filmed. The studio was satisfied with that explanation and let him make Heaven's Gate which destroyed United Artists. I don't know how much digital video would have saved them.