The idea came from Manizha. When she told us she wanted to shoot on an iPhone, we were honestly skeptical. This happened in 2017 when phones weren't as good as now. All the work you can see within the frame was five times more difficult than if we had used a typical big camera.
So we were the first in Russia, and one of the first in the world, to do this with a phone, using a KUKA robot arm for motion control.
The story Manizha wanted to tell was about the comparison, contrast, and blending of two worlds – the one inside the phone, behind the screen, and the one outside.
I turned the ideas into a storyboard, and then the team of engineers, along with the camera crew, set out to figure out how to make it happen. This was a first-time experience for all of us, and using a phone posed obstacles at every step—sometimes we had to adapt the directorial concepts to the technology's capabilities. But all in all, we managed to pull it off. The video truly became resonant.
