iPhone 12 Pro - Recreating a famous movie scene

Recreating a Scene from The Wizard of Oz using iPhone 12 Pro

I used packing tape to attach about a half a foot of invisible cord to the top of the toy house and tie the other end of the cord to my knitting needle in the actual scene. The house looks like it's falling from the sky, so I went outside to film this part. I faced my camera towards the clouds, zoomed in 3.5 times, and once again filmed in slow motion at 240 frames per second as I used my very nifty knitting needle contraption to spin the house in front of the camera lens. This shot definitely gives me those at-home film vibes, but I still think it's really fun. The final shots of this scene where Dorothy's back in her bed in Kansas involve a close-up shot followed by a medium close-up shot.

For the close-up shot, we placed the iPhone back onto the tripod and zoomed in until we got the setup as close to the original as possible. For the medium close-up shot, we switched to the wide-angle lens and only zoomed in a little bit. Once I was done filming on the iPhone, it was time to try using it to edit.

Spoiler Alert: I wasn't able to edit exclusively on the iPhone but I did use the Photos and iMovie apps to help me get started. This scene consists of four base clips - the Ruby Slippers, Dorothy repeating "There's no place like home," the falling house, and Dorothy back in Kansas. iMovie was great for trimming these clips, placing them in order, and adding transitions. I also used the Photos and iMovie apps to enhance the colors in these shots and apply filters to achieve the sepia effect.

However, this scene also has some shots overlaid onto these base clips - the swirl and the Ruby Slippers. Unfortunately, iMovie doesn't have a feature that allows you to overlay semi-transparent clips onto other clips. This was one key reason I had to switch over to using Adobe Premiere. You can add music and sound effects to your project using the iMovie app, but since a lot of the background audio in this scene corresponds with those overlay shots, I found it easier to use Adobe Premiere to place these things too.

That being said, one feature I did find to be particularly useful on the iMovie app was the voiceover option. My mom and I actually lip-synced to the original version of the scene to get our timing right, so we needed to add in our speaking after the fact. The voiceover tool made this pretty easy. We plugged a lav mic into the phone to record with, and it ended up sounding pretty good.

iPhone 12 Pro Camera Capabilities

This camera did really well capturing the rich colors of this scene - like the red of Dorothy's slippers or the greenery outside. It also shoots beautifully in 4K, which definitely gives the shots that hyper-realistic look characteristic of the original scene. This is a camera that honestly for better or for worse captures every detail almost too well. You could really see everything including any fly-away hairs I had on filming day.

However, you may be wondering why I haven't shouted out one of the central upgrades of the iPhone 12 Pro video camera - the ability to shoot and edit in Dolby Vision HDR. While this feature does lead to richer video for maximum compatibility, this scene was shot and rendered in standard dynamic range.

Additional Tips and Resources

If you're interested in learning more about the new camera specs of the iPhone 12 Pro or want to compare it to other phones, I recommend checking out Patrick's iPhone 12 and 12 Pro review or Lexi's 12 Pro versus Galaxy Note 20 Ultra camera comparison. Links to these resources will be available in the description below.

Conclusion

While the iPhone 12 Pro can produce some amazing results with simple edits, I did find that it was necessary to use Adobe Premiere to edit this scene due to its limitations on overlays and more complex editing features. However, I do think it's possible to get some pretty cinematic looking shots on the iPhone 12 Pro.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe iphone 12 pro is here and it's got a pretty fancy video camera on board i was really impressed by some of apple's 12 pro sample films and it got me thinking is it really that easy to film and edit all on the iphone i figured the best way to find out was by trying to do it myself so i set out to recreate part of the iconic there's no place like home closing scene from the wizard of oz i chose this scene one because i think it's pretty sweet when dorothy returns back to kansas and two because now that i'm in my house all the time there really is no place like home i'm gonna take you through my entire process and reveal the finished product at the end that way we can decide together whether it really is possible to produce a hollywood quality movie scene using just the iphone 12 pro and if you have an older iphone or aren't an iphone user at all don't worry i'll be trying out some camera tricks that should work with any phone or video camera with slow motion capability so first things first one cannot recreate a scene from the wizard of oz without some fun costumes and props so for this scene i purchased a green tablecloth because the land of oz is full of greenery a glinda costume dorothy's blue gingham dress her iconic ruby slippers and a very realistic stuffed toto that can also be interchanged with any live pets you may have at home and when it came to pulling off those camera tricks i used a white sheet a phone tripod a black collector's edition slinky a toy house trust me this will make more sense later invisible cord a knitting needle and packing tape once i gathered all my props got dressed up as dorothy and helped my mom transform into glinda her strawberry blonde hair made that very easy it was time to start filming special shout out to my filming crew aka my mom and her housemate for helping me shoot this scene the first part of this scene where dorothy clicks her heels three times is a simple medium close-up shot of her ruby slippers in front of a green background to recreate this i set up my green tablecloth outside and placed the iphone on a tripod pointing down towards my shoes then i used the phone's wide angle lens and set it to 1.8 times zoom to get the framing just right in the next part of this scene dorothy repeats that famous phrase there's no place like home and this looks like a dolly shot towards dorothy's face now i don't have an actual dolly so to mimic this moment my videographer tom set the camera to three times zoom and carefully move towards the subjects aka my mom and i as dorothy continues to repeat there's no place like home a swirl and eventually another clip of her ruby slippers is overlaid onto her face i probably could have found an animation for this swirl somewhere on the internet but in an effort to keep my filming limited to the iphone i decided to use a camera trick to create it instead and i took some major inspiration for this trick from karen x in her version she set her iphone 11 pro to the wide-angle lens and took a slo-mo video at 240 frames per second as she pulled a slinky above the lens in my version i wanted a black swirl so i used a black collector's edition slinky i also wanted my swirl against a white background and didn't want my hands in the shot so i had to get creative this is where the white sheet and packing tape come into play i put the white sheet on my floor and taped the bottom ring of the slinky to the sheet then i moved the slinky up and down with it centered below the iphone lens i kept the iphone set to the wide angle lens the entire time and like karen x shot in slo-mo at 240 frames per second when i sat down to edit this shot i ended up repeating the same segment of footage a few times to keep the scroll looking consistent this shot came out a little different than karen's since i had to keep my hand out of the frame and stick to a white background but it still looks pretty cool and you'll have to stick around until the end of the video to see how well it overlaid onto the dorothy shot the next part of this scene cuts to a shot of a falling house to recreate this part of the scene without causing damage to any actual houses i'll be using this toy house along with my trusty invisible cord to prepare for this shot i used packing tape to attach about a half a foot of invisible cord to the top of the toy house and tie the other end of the cord to my knitting needle in the actual scene the house looks like it's falling from the sky so i went outside to film this part i faced my camera towards the clouds zoomed in 3.5 times and once again filmed in slow motion at 240 frames per second as i used my very nifty knitting needle contraption to spin the house in front of the camera lens this shot definitely gives me those at-home film vibes but i still think it's really fun the final shots of this scene where dorothy's back in her bed in kansas involve a close-up shot followed by a medium close-up shot for the close-up shot we placed the iphone back onto the tripod and zoomed in until we got the setup as close to the original as possible for the medium close-up shot we switched to the wide-angle lens and only zoomed in a little bit once i was done filming on the iphone it was time to try using it to edit now spoiler alert i wasn't able to edit exclusively on the iphone but i did use the photos and imovie apps to help me get started this scene consists of four base clips the ruby slippers dorothy repeating there's no place like home the falling house and dorothy back in kansas imovie was great for trimming these clips placing them in order and adding transitions i also use the photos and imovie apps to enhance the colors in these shots and apply filters to achieve the sepia effect but this scene also has some shots overlaid onto these bass clips the swirl and the ruby slippers and imovie doesn't have a feature that allows you to overlay semi-transparent clips onto other clips this was one key reason i had to switch over to using adobe premiere you can add music and sound effects to your project using the imovie app but since a lot of the background audio in this scene corresponds with those overlay shots i found that it was easier to use adobe premiere to place these things too that being said one feature i did find to be particularly useful on the imovie app was the voiceover option as we filmed my mom and i actually lip synced to the original version of the scene to get our timing right so we needed to add in our speaking after the fact and the voiceover tool made this pretty easy we plugged a lav mic into the phone to record with and it ended up sounding pretty good so that is everything i did to try and recreate this scene using the iphone 12 pro this camera did really well capturing the rich colors of this scene like the red of dorothy slippers or the greenery outside it also shoots beautifully in 4k it definitely gives the shots that hyper realistic look characteristic of the original scene this is a camera that honestly for better or for worse captures every detail almost too well you could really see everything including any flyaway hairs i had on filming day but overall i think this feature is a good thing so i do think it's possible to get some pretty cinematic looking shots on the iphone 12 pro now you may be wondering why i haven't shouted out one of the central upgrades of the iphone 12 pro video camera the ability to shoot and edit in dolby vision hdr while this feature does lead to richer video for maximum compatibility this scene was shot and rendered in standard dynamic range but if you do want some more in-depth information on the various new camera specs of the iphone 12 pro i'd recommend checking out patrick's iphone 12 and 12 pro review or lexi's 12 pro versus galaxy note 20 ultra camera comparison in addition to the 12 pro content on the cnet site links for these things will be down in the description below in terms of editing on the 12 pro the photos and imovie apps are great for simple edits but don't allow for more complex ones like semi-transparent overlay shots while third-party apps like adobe premiere rush can help you achieve these kinds of effects i do wish they were available in apple's photos or imovie app so do i think you can produce a hollywood quality movie scene using just the iphone 12 pro if you're only applying some simple effects to your clips then yes but like i said i did have to use some premiere to edit this scene so thank you so much for watching up until now and without further ado here is the final scene and think to yourself there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place up honey there's no place like home there's no place like homethe iphone 12 pro is here and it's got a pretty fancy video camera on board i was really impressed by some of apple's 12 pro sample films and it got me thinking is it really that easy to film and edit all on the iphone i figured the best way to find out was by trying to do it myself so i set out to recreate part of the iconic there's no place like home closing scene from the wizard of oz i chose this scene one because i think it's pretty sweet when dorothy returns back to kansas and two because now that i'm in my house all the time there really is no place like home i'm gonna take you through my entire process and reveal the finished product at the end that way we can decide together whether it really is possible to produce a hollywood quality movie scene using just the iphone 12 pro and if you have an older iphone or aren't an iphone user at all don't worry i'll be trying out some camera tricks that should work with any phone or video camera with slow motion capability so first things first one cannot recreate a scene from the wizard of oz without some fun costumes and props so for this scene i purchased a green tablecloth because the land of oz is full of greenery a glinda costume dorothy's blue gingham dress her iconic ruby slippers and a very realistic stuffed toto that can also be interchanged with any live pets you may have at home and when it came to pulling off those camera tricks i used a white sheet a phone tripod a black collector's edition slinky a toy house trust me this will make more sense later invisible cord a knitting needle and packing tape once i gathered all my props got dressed up as dorothy and helped my mom transform into glinda her strawberry blonde hair made that very easy it was time to start filming special shout out to my filming crew aka my mom and her housemate for helping me shoot this scene the first part of this scene where dorothy clicks her heels three times is a simple medium close-up shot of her ruby slippers in front of a green background to recreate this i set up my green tablecloth outside and placed the iphone on a tripod pointing down towards my shoes then i used the phone's wide angle lens and set it to 1.8 times zoom to get the framing just right in the next part of this scene dorothy repeats that famous phrase there's no place like home and this looks like a dolly shot towards dorothy's face now i don't have an actual dolly so to mimic this moment my videographer tom set the camera to three times zoom and carefully move towards the subjects aka my mom and i as dorothy continues to repeat there's no place like home a swirl and eventually another clip of her ruby slippers is overlaid onto her face i probably could have found an animation for this swirl somewhere on the internet but in an effort to keep my filming limited to the iphone i decided to use a camera trick to create it instead and i took some major inspiration for this trick from karen x in her version she set her iphone 11 pro to the wide-angle lens and took a slo-mo video at 240 frames per second as she pulled a slinky above the lens in my version i wanted a black swirl so i used a black collector's edition slinky i also wanted my swirl against a white background and didn't want my hands in the shot so i had to get creative this is where the white sheet and packing tape come into play i put the white sheet on my floor and taped the bottom ring of the slinky to the sheet then i moved the slinky up and down with it centered below the iphone lens i kept the iphone set to the wide angle lens the entire time and like karen x shot in slo-mo at 240 frames per second when i sat down to edit this shot i ended up repeating the same segment of footage a few times to keep the scroll looking consistent this shot came out a little different than karen's since i had to keep my hand out of the frame and stick to a white background but it still looks pretty cool and you'll have to stick around until the end of the video to see how well it overlaid onto the dorothy shot the next part of this scene cuts to a shot of a falling house to recreate this part of the scene without causing damage to any actual houses i'll be using this toy house along with my trusty invisible cord to prepare for this shot i used packing tape to attach about a half a foot of invisible cord to the top of the toy house and tie the other end of the cord to my knitting needle in the actual scene the house looks like it's falling from the sky so i went outside to film this part i faced my camera towards the clouds zoomed in 3.5 times and once again filmed in slow motion at 240 frames per second as i used my very nifty knitting needle contraption to spin the house in front of the camera lens this shot definitely gives me those at-home film vibes but i still think it's really fun the final shots of this scene where dorothy's back in her bed in kansas involve a close-up shot followed by a medium close-up shot for the close-up shot we placed the iphone back onto the tripod and zoomed in until we got the setup as close to the original as possible for the medium close-up shot we switched to the wide-angle lens and only zoomed in a little bit once i was done filming on the iphone it was time to try using it to edit now spoiler alert i wasn't able to edit exclusively on the iphone but i did use the photos and imovie apps to help me get started this scene consists of four base clips the ruby slippers dorothy repeating there's no place like home the falling house and dorothy back in kansas imovie was great for trimming these clips placing them in order and adding transitions i also use the photos and imovie apps to enhance the colors in these shots and apply filters to achieve the sepia effect but this scene also has some shots overlaid onto these bass clips the swirl and the ruby slippers and imovie doesn't have a feature that allows you to overlay semi-transparent clips onto other clips this was one key reason i had to switch over to using adobe premiere you can add music and sound effects to your project using the imovie app but since a lot of the background audio in this scene corresponds with those overlay shots i found that it was easier to use adobe premiere to place these things too that being said one feature i did find to be particularly useful on the imovie app was the voiceover option as we filmed my mom and i actually lip synced to the original version of the scene to get our timing right so we needed to add in our speaking after the fact and the voiceover tool made this pretty easy we plugged a lav mic into the phone to record with and it ended up sounding pretty good so that is everything i did to try and recreate this scene using the iphone 12 pro this camera did really well capturing the rich colors of this scene like the red of dorothy slippers or the greenery outside it also shoots beautifully in 4k it definitely gives the shots that hyper realistic look characteristic of the original scene this is a camera that honestly for better or for worse captures every detail almost too well you could really see everything including any flyaway hairs i had on filming day but overall i think this feature is a good thing so i do think it's possible to get some pretty cinematic looking shots on the iphone 12 pro now you may be wondering why i haven't shouted out one of the central upgrades of the iphone 12 pro video camera the ability to shoot and edit in dolby vision hdr while this feature does lead to richer video for maximum compatibility this scene was shot and rendered in standard dynamic range but if you do want some more in-depth information on the various new camera specs of the iphone 12 pro i'd recommend checking out patrick's iphone 12 and 12 pro review or lexi's 12 pro versus galaxy note 20 ultra camera comparison in addition to the 12 pro content on the cnet site links for these things will be down in the description below in terms of editing on the 12 pro the photos and imovie apps are great for simple edits but don't allow for more complex ones like semi-transparent overlay shots while third-party apps like adobe premiere rush can help you achieve these kinds of effects i do wish they were available in apple's photos or imovie app so do i think you can produce a hollywood quality movie scene using just the iphone 12 pro if you're only applying some simple effects to your clips then yes but like i said i did have to use some premiere to edit this scene so thank you so much for watching up until now and without further ado here is the final scene and think to yourself there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place like home there's no place up honey there's no place like home there's no place like home\n"