The recent release of ‘High Flying Bird’ on Netflix, famously made on an iPhone by director Steven Soderbergh (and exhaustively covered online) has brought up a lot of debate amongst filmmakers. Mainly, the specific use of the smartphone as a tool and whether or not it constitutes an actual movie.

I am of the belief that, of course — Soderbergh has crafted a movie here. Despite his use of an iPhone that the general public use to capture family moments, outrageous public behaviors and selfies (amongst other uses) — High Flying Bird is a movie.

The tool — I argued with a number of commenters on social media, was irrelevant. What matters was the story. To which someone replied — if the tool is irrelevant, why not use the onboard audio when making a film on a smartphone?

This is an interesting point. Soderbergh here has made a conventional film using an unconventional tool. He could have made this movie using any number of professional and prosumer instruments available at his disposal to tell this tail — he simply used the iPhone due to its versatility and portability.

He still, however — crafted a conventional film with a $2 million dollar budget. It had a sound crew and an audio mixer. The onboard audio was not used — so to this posters point — This was a modestly budgeted film made using a tool commonly associated with video capture.

So, if this is a film, not a video — is there a difference? Does the sound quality make the difference?

I watched a YouTube video recently of a woman having a public meltdown at a staff member of Walmart in the United States. It was fascinating and riveting. The aim of the capture was to publicly humiliate the person online by posting the video shortly afterward.

I don’t condone this behavior, but I do recognize that this documented piece of content has the ability to grip an audience, which is why these compilations draw massive view numbers (which is kind of sad when you think about it).

However, if someone were to craft a film out of footage constructed in a similar way — I would find this, too, fascinating. The absence of a crew and a professional aesthetic would put me in the moment. Telling my brain ‘this is real, it happened, it’s embarrassing — that’s how you should feel’.

This would then elevate the work, in my view to that of a film — over a video.

So, therefore — Is it the intent behind a shoot that makes something a film rather than a video?

I believe the lines are blurring.

The more we see films crafted on handheld devices, the more I am convinced of this.