Oscar-Winning Documentary Filmmaker Used His iPhone When Money Ran Out

When Malik Bendjelloul — director of the Academy Award-winning documentary ‘Searching for Sugar Man‘ — ran out of money just a few necessary shots away from completing his film, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He had decided to shoot the film on a Super 8 film camera, but the cost of film had taken a larger toll on his budget than he had expected.

That’s when he stumbled onto the $2 iPhone app that saved his film and, to some extent, is the reason Bendjelloul now has an Oscar sitting on his mantle.

The app is called 8mm Film Camera, and when Bendjelloul discovered it, he was surprised and delighted to find that it looked “basically the same as the real stuff.”

With the app’s help he was able to complete his award-winning film, enjoying the effect it produced so much that he even used it to re-film some of his already captured footage over again off a computer screen.

To learn more, either about the iPhone app that saved an Oscar-winner or the Oscar-winner itself, check out the short CNNMoney snippet at the top or swing by the documentary’s website.

(via iPhoneography)

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