🎃 "The Bogeyman Comes at Night": Our Halloween Short Shot ENTIRELY on iPhone 17 Pro Max
Happy Halloween! Watch Our iPhone-Shot Horror Short
Every Halloween, we love to challenge ourselves creatively. This year, our goal was simple: shoot a cinematic horror short that felt professional, but use only the camera we had in our pocket.
The result is "The Bogeyman Comes at Night," and every single frame was captured on the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
My main focus was to see exactly how far the iPhone could perform in extreme low-light conditions. Could a phone truly deliver a high-quality, theatrical look when the scenes are nearly pitch black?
🔪 Inside the Workflow: The Cinematic Specs Breakdown
Achieving a cinematic look on a smartphone requires more than just pointing and shooting. It's about combining professional accessories with robust software to maximize the image data. Here is the exact technical setup we used to bring this nightmare to life:
1. The Lens and Filtration: Creating the Look
Lens: Freewell 1.33x Anamorphic. This is the key component that gives the film its wide, distinctive cinematic aspect ratio and those gorgeous horizontal lens flares that are a staple of the anamorphic look.
Filtration: Tiffen Black Pro Mist 1/4. This essential filter was used to slightly bloom the highlights and gently lift the shadows, adding a soft, ethereal, and slightly vintage quality to the low-light images.
2. The Digital Film Workflow
Recording App: Blackmagic Camera App. This app gives us manual control over every cinematic setting—shutter angle, ISO, and white balance—that the native camera app simply doesn't allow.
Recording Format: ProRes. We recorded directly to the industry-standard Apple ProRes format. This codec retains maximum image quality and color information, which is critical for pushing the footage in post-production without breaking it.
External Storage: Lexar Professional Go SSD. Recording ProRes demands massive storage and fast write speeds, so we recorded directly to this external SSD, bypassing the phone’s internal storage limits.
3. Post-Production
Edit & Color: DaVinci Resolve. All editing, color correction, and final grading were completed in DaVinci Resolve, treating the iPhone ProRes footage just as we would any professional cinema camera file.
Audio: Musicbed. The tension, atmosphere, and scares were built using licensed music and sound effects from Musicbed, proving that sound design is half the magic in horror.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
We are thrilled with the results of "The Bogeyman Comes at Night." It proves that with the right combination of accessories and software, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is a legitimate tool for cinematic production, especially in challenging low-light environments.
Let us know if you have any specific questions about how this was shot in the comments below! 👇
P.S. Want to see how we did it? Keep an eye out for our Behind-the-Scenes (BTS) and Making Of video, coming soon! We'll show you exactly how we rigged the phone and lit those terrifying scenes.