Lulu Wang met with his Golden Globe nominated team The Goodbye to make a movie on Apple’s chic new iPhone in honor of the Lunar New Year. Summing up, Nian, Wang gives a new twist to an old Chinese folktale in an 11-minute short that manages to capture a sense of magic in the style of Studio Ghibli. See the full short below.
Watch Nian, the lunar short film by Lulu Wang
If Spike Jonze’s Where are the wild things met Hayao Miyazaki My Neighbor Totoro, it would be something like Wang’s new Apple short Nian, an 11-minute short film that celebrates the Lunar New Year (which takes place on February 12 this year) entirely on the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Apple has been highly praising the iPhone 12 Pro models as the best smartphone ever made for filmmakers, recently hiring Oscar-winning filmmaker Emmanuel Lubezki to make a 60-second HDR movie with Dolby Vision on the model. But while Wang’s short film is undeniably visually impressive, it’s the magical story she tells in these 11 minutes that makes Nian it looks like more than a long Apple announcement.
Nian tells the story of a curious young woman who is determined to find “Nian”, a monster from her mother’s bedtime stories who allegedly devours children who get lost in the forest. But when she finds him, she finds out that Nian is not the terrible beast she thought he was. The wonderful scenes shot in the forest – which a ground mirror team in China had to capture – while Wang and his team worked remotely in the United States due to COVID-19 travel restrictions – are absolutely stunning, as are the photos and angles innovators that Wang uses to expand that sense of wonder. A shot from inside the monster’s mouth is especially impressive, as is a stunning montage as the girl grows up next to Nian. The production also featured “night scenes that were difficult to shoot and scenes set inside a cave, where space and lighting were limited,” according to Variety, which is where the iPhone 12 Pro Max, with Dolby Vision lenses, from low light and ultra-wide angle, telephoto lens, stabilization and time-lapse features were helpful.
“It is really exciting to have the opportunity to retell this old story, to capture these incredibly cinematic images with the iPhone, this versatile device,” said Wang in a behind-the-scenes feature that accompanies the film. The Nian The team “had a lot of fun trying to figure out where else we can put the phone so we can get angles and perspectives that are a little bit more exclusive,” said Wang.
Watch the backstage clip of Wang’s making of Nian:
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