Phoning it in

A few years ago, filmmakers began trading in their old-school 35mm cameras for sleek digital models. But now, even those are becoming too cumbersome for some major directors who have started shooting movies with their iPhones. Steven Soderbergh shot his new film “Unsane” with an iPhone 7 Plus and is using it for his next project, “High Flying Bird,” too.

Here are three other motion pictures that were captured with the mobile device.

“Tangerine” (2015)

Director Sean Baker became the first director to shoot a major film using an iPhone (a 5s model) with this low-budget, Hollywood-set dramedy about transgender prostitutes (pictured above). But Baker didn’t just simply click record. He used a special $8 app called Filmic Pro that locks exposure and focus — the standard camera app refocuses automatically — for consistency. The film was shot in 22 days and became a hit at the Sundance Film Festival. “It was surprisingly easy,” he told the Verge. “We never lost any footage.”

“Florida Project” (2017)

Baker whipped out his phone again for the critically acclaimed “The Florida Project,” starring Willem Dafoe. But, this time, it was for a different reason. Although most of the movie was shot on 35mm film, the last scene, which took place in Disney World, was recorded on an iPhone 6s Plus in order to be discreet. “[Filming’s] not against the law, it’s just against the [Disney] rules, and sometimes you have to break rules to make a film,” Baker told the Hollywood Reporter.

“Détour” (2017)

Another acclaimed director to phone in a film is Oscar winner Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). He created an 11-minute short, using only an iPhone 7, about a lost tricycle that tries to reunite with its owners.