Inspiring Documentary Shot Entirely in 4K on iPhone 6s Plus: Watch Here

We all remember our first camera phone. The pictures were terrible, but the idea was fascinating nonetheless. We could capture every moment with a device that was smaller than the palm of our hand. In the year 2002, who would have thought that a cell phone would eventually shoot an inspiring documentary in 4K high-definition? No one did.

After 2002, cell phone technology would begin to evolve rapidly. By 2005, we were shooting 320×240 resolution videos on our cellular phones; a groundbreaking advancement for the time.

Jump forward ten years and technology is all but the same. Cell phone ideology has evolved from “thin is in” to “bigger is better.” Apple has dropped the infamous 3.5 inch iPhone display, and jumped to 5.5 inches on the iPhone 6s Plus. Bigger is truly better when it comes to video recording resolution.

In 2015, who would’ve thought that a cell phone could produce a movie in quality as stunning as multi-thousand dollar cameras? Two RYOT co-founders and filmmakers did, and they achieved this technological milestone just last week.

Long gone are the days of grainy 320×240 videos; today the iPhone 6s is capable of shooting full-length movies in 4K resolution.

Byrn Mooser and David Darg took a final look at the documentary they recently filmed on the iPhone 6s Plus, and even they were surprised at how good it was.

“In a relatively short amount of time, we went from terrible pixelated phone photos to, this, which is just as good as cameras that cost tens of thousands of dollars,” Darg says.

The film is based on a man who is determined to bring color to his hometown of Jalouzi. By painting the homes and buildings within the impoverished community, he hopes to bring joy to the people who inhabit it. He says “life can be challenging and hard; without color, it would be impossible”

RYOT describes the documentary in further detail,

Jalouzi (pronounced JAH-loo-zee) is a slum on a mountainside; a bleak expanse of cinderblock homes in Port-Au-Prince, the nation’s capital. Apropos to a country full of contrast, Jalouzi sits directly above Petionville, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. ”

They also go on to explain,

The project that began the painting of the homes was a 2013 government initiative. The $1.4 million effort titled Beauty versus Poverty: Jalousie in Colours was part of a government project to relocate people from the overcrowded displacement camps that popped up after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

Once the funding dried up, a painter who lived in Jalouzi, Duval Pierre, took it upon himself to finish what was started, recruiting kids in the neighborhood to help. Now, nearly half of the homes have been painted a rainbow of turquoise, purple, pink, peach, and cream.”

David and Bryn lived in Haiti for 3 years as humanitarian aid workers after the quake; during this time they had made several trips to Jalouzi.

David mentioned in an interview with RYOT “When we heard the new iPhone would shoot in 4K, we thought about what we could shoot that would really demonstrate the power of the resolution. Jalouzi is so visually impacting. The mountainside is full of detail and color, so it’s the ultimate test of a camera’s ability. Plus, we’ve been wanting to tell the story for a long time”

With so much negativity in the media, it’s certainly refreshing to see a film that educates and changes people’s perceptions about an unexpressed part of the world.

The film is inspiring, uplifting, and definitely worth a watch. Make sure to set the YouTube resolution to 4K if your monitor can support it, sit back, watch, and try to fathom that the entire documentary was shot on a cell phone.