Horror Director Zach Cregger Makes Movies With His iPhone

The director of Weapons and Resident Evil shoots on the same phone in your pocket. Apple has shared a new video of Zach Cregger explaining how he uses his iPhone to make movies — the latest in its long-running Shot on iPhone series.

Apple's marketing chief Greg Joswiak shared the video on November 4, posting it to Apple TV. In it, Cregger — whose horror film Weapons became one of the year's surprise hits — talks about how the iPhone fits into his filmmaking, from testing shots to capturing footage on the go.

Shot on iPhone, a decade on

Apple has been promoting iPhone filmmaking for more than a decade, and the campaign has grown from still photos to full feature films. Directors including Sean Baker, who shot Tangerine on an iPhone 5s in 2015, and Danny Boyle, who shot 28 Years Later on iPhone 15 Pro Max, have used the phone as a serious production camera. Cregger is the latest big-name director to join that list.

The appeal is practical as much as creative: an iPhone is small enough to shoot anywhere, shoots in ProRes and Log for professional colour grading, and pairs with accessories that turn it into a rig. For a horror director, that means capturing a shot in a real location, at night, without a full crew — the kind of spontaneity that suits the genre.

What Cregger is working on

Cregger's next film is Resident Evil, the reboot of the long-running video game franchise, which he is directing for Sony Pictures. The iPhone video arrives as that production ramps up, and as Apple continues to push the iPhone 18's camera as a filmmaking tool — including the new front-facing camera and the improved stabilisation that the company highlighted at its September launch.

Sources

• MacRumors — Zach Cregger Makes Movies With His iPhone in New Apple Video
• Apple Newsroom — Apple debuts iPhone 18