Watch this mini-movie celebrating Chinese New Year, shot with the iPhone 12 Pro Max camera

The official Apple channel on YouTube has shared a short film, shot on an iPhone 12 Pro Max, that reimagines a Chinese New Year legend as a contemporary coming-of-age story.

Titled “Chinese New Year – Nian”, the 12-minute video is basically a short mini-film, directed by Lulu Wang and created with a little help of additional equipment, such as stabilizers and microphones. The video, embedded below, was filmed and edited by the team behind the Golden Globe-nominated film, titled “The Farewell”.

The video’s original score was composed by Alex Weston.

Making of “Nian” with Lulu Wang

Apple has also shared an accompanying making-of video.

“How do you make a movie without using a movie camera?”, Apple writes in the video’s description. “See how Director Lulu Wang pulled it off with the iPhone 12 Pro Max and go behind the scenes of Apple’s latest Chinese New Year film, ‘Nian’”.

Music by Roman Senyk

Shot on iPhone

Apparently, all it takes is a little creativity to make cinema magic, just like the movies.

That, plus a team of Hollywood professionals behind the camera, I’d add. By the way, if you’ve been wondering what “Nian” means, it denotes Chinese New Year—which is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional Chinese calendar.

Just a few days ago, Apple shared a behind the scenes look at four student filmmakers creating short films with its devices. And before that, the company treated us to the magic of vertical cinematography with a shot-on-iPhone film from director Damien Chazelle.