’28 Years Later’ Director Danny Boyle Says Shooting on iPhones Let Him Capture ‘Startling’ Violence

In 2001, Danny Boyle had a problem. To make his new postapocalyptic horror film, 28 days laterHe had to capture images of a Cillian Murphy then unknown wandering in the abandoned streets of London. The city closed was not, however, an option for low -budget production, and none would recreate it in a studio. Instead, the 68 -year -old director made a surprising choice: he filmed with cannon digital cameras with slight low resolution. The technology, which was advanced at the time, made it possible to record scenes in emblematic places like Westminster Bridge and Piccadilly Circus in less than an hour. He also gave 28 days later Its unique grainy look that highlights the film still today.

Almost three decades later, Boyle faced a similar dilemma. As its title suggests, 28 years later Exactly takes place 28 years after the initial trigger for a zombie “rabies virus”. Abandoned by the rest of the world, a UK in quarantine has returned to its natural state, even if pockets of humans and zombies survive. To give life to this vision, Boyle had to rely on light cameras to film in places that he could normally do it. But this time, the location was the wild desert of Northumbria, and the camera was an iPhone.

“Filming with iPhones has allowed us to move without huge amounts of equipment,” said Boyle to Wired. “Many Northumbria seems to have spoken 1000 years ago. So we were able to move quickly and slightly in the areas of the countryside that we wanted to keep their lack of human footprint.”

28 years later is a full moment for Boyle, in more ways than one. The original film transformed its director, better known at the time for Dark Comedies as Trainpottingin a genre author. But during the decades that followed, he resisted the revision of this postapocalyptic framework, Especially seated outside The 2007 suite 28 weeks later. His return, triggered in part by the cocovio-19 cocovide pandemic, which gave life to the vision of Boyle of an empty London, takes the franchise in surprising directions which both set up a any new trilogy And manage to tell a beautiful story about life, death and the unbreakable bond between the parent and the child.

For Boyle, these are all valid reasons to re -examine the world he created with the scriptwriter Alex Garland. But there will never be a bad time to make this film – even if the timing is particularly premonitory in the context of ours apocalyptic reality.

“There was no decrease in appetite for apocalyptic stories,” said Boyle. “Whether it is because we are in the worst times, I don’t know. Certainly, the horrors of the world have not decreased since we made the first film. If anything, they got worse, and they bleed in the film, be it the horrors of war or the horrors of infection.”

Before the film’s release, Wired explained to Boyle why was the perfect time for a suite, the advantages and disadvantages of filming on iPhone, and why he couldn’t wait 28 real years to go out 28 years later.

“Poor ball time”

Earlier this month, Ign published a backstage overview 28 years laterRevealing a massive platform capable of pointing 20 IPhone 15 Pro Max cameras (all equipped with special accessories) about them. By talking to me on Zoom, Boyle explains how this smartphone table, organized in a semicircle, allows the director to capture complex action scenes from several angles at the same time.

“This allowed us to do what is essentially the time of the bullets of a poor,” he said, referring to the effect launched by The matrix. But while The matrix Used in ball time to visualize his fight of physics, Boyle’s goal was to capture the brutality of his world. “We use it for violence. It was sometimes surprising and represented unexpectedly. ”