Vishal Bhardwaj on what it was like shooting a film on an iPhone – Times of India

Fursat

” which is unlike anything else he has done in a rather memorable career.
“I am excited and amazed in equal measure at the power of the iPhone,” he says in a tête-à-tête with The Times of India-Gadgets Now.

Fursat

has been shot entirely on the iPhone 14 Pro and is quite a whimsical film with all things associated with Bollywood. So there’s music, dance, and colour but Bhardwaj was clear that just because he wasn’t shooting on an iPhone, he wouldn’t lower the scale. In fact, he says that he has never had this kind of scale in any of his films before.

The iPhone’s box of tricks and movie making

Ask him how the project got in motion and he says that he had seen a couple of Chinese films that were completely shot on the iPhone. So there was definite intrigue in exploring the idea. And he wanted to have two things in the movie — a love story and a moving train. Quintessential Hindi movie, right? But Fursat is not your typical Bollywood movie in any sense. While it’s for you to watch and figure out what it’s all about, it’s an impressive turnaround in just nine days — the total time Bhardwaj took to shoot the project.
Watch the movie and unless someone tells you that it is shot on an iPhone, chances are you will never be to guess that anything has been shot on a phone camera. Especially there are scenes where Nishu — the protagonist played by Ishaan Khattar — is running on busy streets. “Action mode was the biggest surprise for me,” says Bhardwaj, before adding, “if you see the raw footage, the visual is so jarring and destabilised. On Action mode, it’s so smooth. You have to see it to believe it.” He is right about that. You actually have to see it to believe it that some of the sequences have been shot on the iPhone 14 Pro,
Bhardwaj says that it took him nine days to shoot the movie and while there was a proper crew, not much equipment used. Additional software and hardware was used — and there’s a clear disclaimer which states that — but Bhardwaj says that the experience was totally liberating. “Normally, the conventional film camera requires people, attendants, lenses and the whole shebang. In that sense, shooting with the iPhone was extremely liberating.”

How it will help filmmakers

Bhardwaj goes down memory lane and recalls how shooting a movie was a genuine challenge. Not only in the sense of coming with a good script, cast and other ingredients but shooting came with limitations. The iPhone gives every budding filmmaker an opportunity to just go out there, shoot and then showcase,” he says.
The message Bhardwaj is sending is live in the moment, rather than worrying about the future or needlessly ruminating about the past. Here Bhardwaj quotes Gulzar — who has penned down the lyrics for Fursat’s songs — “

Dil dhoondta hai fursat ke wohi raat din”.

All this talk about the past, present and future lead to a rather obvious question: is shooting on iPhone or perhaps other cameras the future of filmmaking? Bhardwaj pauses for a minute and says, “I think what we will see in the future is a lot more filmmakers than in the past. Those who were fazed by the whole idea of even thinking about how to begin shooting will now be seen knocking at producers’ doors with not just their ideas but actual films that have been shot on the iPhone,” he says.