Diego Contreras : Movi, Apple, and Filmmaking

Published in

Every Axis

16 min readNov 19, 2019

Frame-grab from Apples iPhone 11 Promotional Video

Diego Contreras is a commercial and music video director based in Los Angeles and represented by RESET. He’s directed spots and branded content for clients such as Facebook, 23andMe, Reebok, GE, Lincoln Motors and Blue Moon, just to name a few. His most recent work involves Apple and its latest iPhone event.

You might’ve seen Diego holding a Movi during Apple’s iPhone 11 announcement earlier this month (September 2019). Everyone at Freefly sure did. Later the same day, Apple released a series of “Cinematic Tests” with the iPhone 11, which were also directed and shot by Diego.

We immediately reached out to him and he was willing to hop on a call with Tabb Firchau (CEO, Freefly Systems) to talk about his experience with Movi, Apple, and filmmaking.

TABB — Hey Diego! Sorry for the delay, I started having some technical difficulties earlier.

DIEGO — No worries, I was just finishing up a call for another project coming up. You called as I was hanging up

Good man! You got projects back to back.

Gosh, yeah, it’s been crazy.

Yeah, that’s great. I’m envious, I used to live the life of a single freelancer. And before I started Freefly, and you know, back then I was like, “Oh, it’d be so great to work with other people because I’m always alone.” And then after I started Freefly, it’s like, so busy and hectic. And I’m like, I wish I could work alone a little bit more. It’s a human condition to want what you don’t always have I guess.

Totally.

When did you start Freefly? It’s truly been amazing what you’ve done with the company.

Thank you. We started in 2011.

Yeah, I guess that kind of makes sense. I remember first shooting with the MōVI around 2014 or 2015. Everyone was hearing about it and it was kind of the talk of the town, the “MōVI”…

Yeah, we launched the MōVI in 2013. And honestly, we’ve just been hanging on for dear life ever since then. I never set out to build products. I started off as an aerial cinematographer and I just love making films I love specifically making aerials. We never expected the MōVI to be nearly as popular as it turned out to be, it just blew our minds.

Yeah man, I can’t imagine. And now you’ve expanded into all kinds of different things, right?

Yeah, we did. We still do a lot of drone work. We do a lot of stabilizers, kind of big, small, all different sizes. For us, we always wanted to make a consumer product, but we were always a little scared to do it just because of how much money it was going to take and how hard we thought it was going to be and how impossible to succeed it would be.
We were actually launching a new drone the same day that all the Apple stuff came out. I was getting text messages from the team saying, “Holy shit! Movi was just in the Apple keynote!” And knowing where I come from, just to see your products being used and sold by Apple is just like…If you told me this would have happened 10 years ago, I would have fallen over dead.

Haha, Me too man! It was pretty wild to see myself up on their big screen at the Keynote, and then seeing my name on the credits. My family was in town visiting, and as parents do, they got very emotional when seeing it.

I kept thinking, whoa, they usually don’t credit people in these Apple conferences and for us, it really meant a lot.

I feel like they’re changing a little bit in that regard. Like they’re being a lot more kind of inclusive, and like giving more credit now, which is awesome.

Yeah, and I love that.

You’re seeing a lot of “Commissioned by Apple” and that's great because it honors the artists and creators.

My project, however, did work like every other commercial-style pitch, competing against a wider range of talented directors that were being considered for it.

Yeah, when they say “commission”, it makes it sound like they backed up a truck full of cash to your house and said, “You’ve been hand-selected, go have a fun time.”

Haha, like, “Here’s some money… go crazy! But no, this wasn’t like that.

I was still working off creative ideas coming from their team and also proposing some of my own. And of course, having to respond to and get approvals from the client, but honestly, they were so supportive and gave me tons of creative freedom for it. It was such a great experience.

That’s awesome.

And I was happy they let me use the Movi for it. They wanted to keep it as pure as possible. Shooting 100% natively on the iPhone without any third-party apps or lenses. But one of my questions was whether I’d be able to use any gear to move the camera. Things like techno cranes and the Movi.

By coincidence, I had been shooting with the Movi on my phone for about a year, doing it mostly just for fun on my little Instagram Stories. I was introduced to it on a scout by a DP. One of my good friends and collaborators…

Who was that?

Guillermo Garza.

He was the DP on this Apple project.

He showed up to a location scout and was using it to test Steadicam shots we’d be getting later with the Alexa. I went, “Oh my god, this is amazing” and ordered one immediately. But funny enough, I didn’t buy it for work, I just wanted to shoot some more cinematic looking Insta-Stories as I don’t remember anyone doing it at the time.

Those little stories started getting tons of love on my Instagram, even more than my photos. And I kept getting flooded with people asking, “How are you getting it so stable?”.

I don’t know if these stories had an influence on being invited by Apple to work on this iPhone 11 Pro film, but I hope they did!

I got their approval to use the Movi on the shoot as long as we kept the filming pure. No lenses, apps or any color grading.

Most people commenting on social media still believe we used lenses, apps like Filmic Pro, and touched up the footage but we didn’t.

It was 100% legitimately coming natively from the iPhone’s camera...

That’s so cool. The thing that I’ve been so excited about is to have a wider angle option on the phone that doesn’t have optical image stabilization. So when they came out with that I was like, oh man, I’m done. This is perfect. That’s so exciting.

Yeah, the Ultra-Wide angle is so great!

Except it is so wide you actually start seeing a chunk of the Movi in the frame. And things you normally don’t expect to see. But it’s something we fixed with the counterweights.

It’s funny because I actually ruined several of my favorite takes that we got at night because I failed to realize that I was seeing a corner of the Movi in the frame, or sometimes even crew members that I thought were off frame.

I was shocked to see how wide they went with the angle. It’s really cool, it was a bold move to go that wide with it.

I love it. I got a chance to go test the phone at the Apple HQ and that wide lens was the first thing that blew me away. Then the smooth stabilization on the 4k 60fps looks so much more cinematic.

I never thought you could shoot cinematic visuals on a phone; the cropping is to tight and the shakiness is kind of unbearable. But when I tried this phone (iPhone 11), I kept saying, “This changes everything”.

Yeah, and now your location scouting stories are looking pretty damn good.
I was thinking about this the other day while looking through my iCloud, asking myself, “When was the first time I ever made an image that I was proud of from a phone.”
When do you remember making an image on a phone that you loved? It could be a still or something with motion.

It’s hard to remember. But I do believe shooting photos on my phone has influenced how I shoot my film work. On the phone, I’d capture these photos of solitary, silhouetted people in a wide-open landscape. Often these were quick stolen moments or sometimes I would set them up. But it was basically what you see from the human eye, not from an exaggerated zoom lens or points of view like techno cranes that feel staged or unnatural. What you see in front of you is what you get, and that’s how I’ve always approached my work.

Looking back, phones didn’t really have a great dynamic range and in order to get photos to look good, you had to know how to manipulate light and contrast to work within those 6 or so stops that it had.

Yeah, that’s something that changed everything for me with the iPhone a couple of generations back. When they added that little exposure slider setting to adjust the exposure on the fly. I learned over time to underexpose photos and videos on the phone by a lot if you want a much cleaner, cinematic image.

On this Apple work, a lot of people wondered and asked, how did you guys get this phone footage to look so clean?

Of course, a lot comes down to great use of lighting and the amazing new camera sensors. But also, just from underexposing like crazy.

So much that, at times, the DP and I could barely see things on the screen as we were shooting mostly night but hoping the image details would hold.

It was risky, not knowing exactly how it would look, but after watching the footage on the 5K monitors I went like, “Whoa, I’ve never seen quality that good coming from a phone before.” Even the Apple team was blown away with the results. And seeing them so excited was a pretty cool experience.

Yeah, it looks beautiful. The gap is narrowing every single year between iPhone and high-end cameras. It’s pretty exciting.

It was actually kind of fun and unique because we didn’t have monitors on set, so no one could see the footage while myself or Guillermo were operating the phone.

When one of us was up on a techno crane, no one else could see what was being shot. And for me as a director, that felt very freeing.

I’ve gotten used to doing commercial shoots where you have 15 people from the client or agency watching your footage on monitors every second of the shoot and commenting or nitpicking on every shot.

It’s like having a chef cook a special meal with 20 people standing behind their back each trying to sprinkle some random spices!

It’s sadly something that is truly undervaluing the role of a director and DP on commercial sets.

But here on this iPhone shoot, for a good portion of the shoot, it was me and the iPhone and that was it… No live feeds or monitors or random comments. And that’s why I loved every second of it.

It brought back memories of why I first became a director and many others of my generation. It all started with just me, a DLSR camera and finding a meaningful story to capture and share with the world.

It’s so fun to be able to have that small of a package and actually do the exact move that you want to do with your own hands. With none of the support equipment or anything. It’s just really cool.

Yeah, it brought me back to doing film for the love and not worrying about all the bulky, cumbersome gear and wires that hold you down on the usual commercial shoot…

…Not worrying about craft services?

Haha! Honestly, it was just so liberating to just grab it and shoot.

That’s awesome.

Because I’ve been doing this long enough now where I just feel like you don’t have enough time because of the bulkiness of film productions.

Yeah, it is. It’s a huge production these days.

And of course, I love it. But this shoot got me thinking and hoping it could be this simple all the time. Just you, the camera, and being able to just move fast and free.

Well, I think the really amazing part is that the people are consuming the end content on their phone, which a lot of people do these days. There’s not that big a difference from what you can do with your Movi versus what you’re going to do with a Mini LF, you know. The impact (to the end customer) is not quite as big as it used to be, which is really a cool place to be.

Yeah.

So on that topic. I was wondering when you’re shooting on a normal production, what’s your regular kit look like? Is it mostly Alexa?

Yeah, I love the Alexa and it’s my go-to camera. I’ve been shooting on the Mini LF now and it's great.

In terms of motion, I always go for Steadicam. I just love a moving camera.

We also use the MōVI and get that up on cranes or drones for steady movement.

The choice of lens always varies depending on the production and what kind of feel I’m looking for the project. I get bored with the same look quickly so try to keep it varied.

Yeah, that’s cool. To contrast that, what does your kit look like when you’re shooting with phones?

Basically, just the phone and the Movi. I have lenses but get tired of carrying those around. So, it’s just what it is. You know, keep it basic.

Yeah, I really like the way the image looks with the Moment wide on my phone. But I get sick of it not fitting in my pocket. Then I break that thing a lot. So, the one thing that I’m really excited about is having a wide-angle option built into the phone, that’s going to be just a total game-changer for me.

Exactly.

I think you kind of touched on this with “underexposing”, but any other tips that you want to share for creating a cinematic image with a phone?

Yeah, definitely underexposing. But you also need to understand that you need lots of light if you’re doing that.

You can’t just take it out late at night and assume it will look naturally stunning. We were lighting it like you would on a proper film set.

So it’s all about finding the sweet spot and embracing as much natural light, or creating your own to make sure you get a nice, clean image.

Yeah, that makes sense.
What can you tell us about the new iPhone? That’s what I’m really curious about. What were the things that were most exciting for you?

For me, it all comes down to the ultra-wide lens for video. That’s 100% a gamechanger.

Then something else I noticed but haven’t seen advertised much was the smooth stabilization on the 4k at 60fps. You can now walk and shoot, and it stabilizes a lot of the handshake. That’s huge and something that will help filmmakers a ton.

That’s really cool. This morning I was just looking through your Instagram account and your stories from all these amazing locations you’ve been scouting. What’s the kit that you normally travel with? Like, what is the kit you always have in your backpack with you at all times?

I keep it light, I have a FUJI X100T that I use for all my scout photos, and then I bring my Movi for the phone. That’s pretty much it.

Some of the locations were like in Kiev, I think? As soon as I watched those stories, I was just like, oh my god, I want to go there. That looks so amazing.

Yeah, it’s such a stunning place. It’s almost painful because you see so many epic locations and just don’t have the time to film them all.

It’s pretty surreal to scout a city like that and gain access to places you’d normally never get access to on a normal day.

Super inspiring. I was like, I want to shoot in all these locations it looks amazing.

What’s funny is that sometimes I ask scouts to get me into some crazy locations even if knowing I’ll never be able to shoot them for the project we’re scouting for.

I managed to get myself into a massive ship-making warehouse at a military base in Kiev and I came out giggling knowing it was all for a 5-second Insta-story.

What are you most excited about in the future of filmmaking?

I didn’t come from a film school background and never got access to gear or film sets. I learned most of what I know by going out with a cheap camera and learning on the go. It was basic. Learning by pure trial and error.

I was filming little travel memories with my girlfriend who is now my wife. The process felt so personal and something I was doing for the pure love of it. Eventually, people watched these videos and they began to spread online through blogs and Vimeo staff picks. And that opened doors for me to quit my career in advertising and take the leap of faith into becoming a full-time director.

Now that I’ve been directing commercials for bigger brands the scale has gone way up. There are 100 to 200 people on set. Then the bulkiness of having to transport gear up and down every location. It’s the stuff that makes your footage look beautiful and what’s necessary for a higher caliber of work, but it’s also what can slow you the heck down!

I miss the simplicity and intimacy of just going out with a camera and an actor without the battalion. I yearn to gain back to that simplicity.

So yeah, it’s a long answer to your question…

But what I’m most excited for in the future of filmmaking is finding a way to further simplify the process and gain back the time to just focus on the emotion and the beauty of a scene… On the performance of an actor, and the ability to experiment, play and try new things on set.

I never expected it, but that’s exactly what I felt on this recent Apple project and the simplicity and immediacy of shooting on a phone.

It’s funny. In the beginning, that’s really what made us get excited about Movi. We thought like, holy shit, we have this thing that a human can carry that can create any type of shot you want. And you can go anywhere in the world. That was that aha moment. It will be so exciting to be making films with a tool like this.

Yeah, the first time I used the MōVI was on a shoot in the desert. We hired a 2nd Unit DP who owned one and sent him out for a full day on his own. He came back with some really beautiful stabilized footage. A lot was even better than what our main unit was getting.

And I was like, man, this was just one guy and a MōVI!

Yeah, there’s a lot of these, “ MōVI/Gimbal Assassin” type guys. They just go out and by the end of the day, they have just like crushed it. They come back with so much great footage just from one person. It’s amazing.
How did you get started with RESET?

Filmmaking was actually something that was never on my radar as a career I could have. My parents were full-on business entrepreneurs, so I went to school for a business degree. Somehow wound up working as an advertising Art Director for six years at great agencies like BBDO and Anomaly in NY.

While there I was shooting personal videos and a couple of music videos that eventually lead to quitting my career and joining the director roster at Bullitt, a production company founded by the Russo Brothers (Avengers Infinity War).

I had three really great years with them, and then I got an offer to join Reset.

This is kind of funny, you and I are on slightly similar paths. Like I went to school for economics and math and statistics. I thought I was going to do that. And I somehow ended up in the film industry also.

That’s awesome!

That’s pretty much how it was for me too. Partly through connections in the industry and also, I believe from having beaten some of their directors on a few big pitches! That put me on their radar and sparked their curiosity. At least that’s my version of the story hah!

When they called, I was excited as they were always one of my dream companies to work for and they had some of my favorite directors on their roster like David Fincher and Garth Davis. And as soon as we met, it felt like a perfect fit. It’s been two years now and a great ride so far.