28 Years Later Was Actually Filmed Using iPhones – Danny Boyle Explains Why
28 Years Later director Danny Boyle has opened up about his decision to shoot much of the film using an iPhone camera.
The horror sequel was released last week, and has already proven to be a big success with both critics and cinemagoers.
Danny previously helmed the original movie 28 Days Later, shot on hand-held cameras, giving the film the effect of looking like found footage, and his new offering used similarly lo-fi techniques.
In a new interview with YouTuber Matti Haapoja's How They Filmed That series, Danny explained his motivations for using iPhone cameras (although it's worth pointing out he didn't just rifle in his pocket for his phone and start shooting, these were souped-up iPhones with impressive enhancements, with some shots requiring as many as 20 at a time to film) to record 28 Years Later.
'[Using iPhones] allowed us to be very light, in our footprint, in areas of the country that we wanted to suggest hadn't been touched for 28 years,' Danny said. 'Now, a crew coming in with the normal equipment level, it's going to make a big footprint.
'We used drones a lot, as well, so we could film sequences that cameras couldn't possibly [achieve] without terribly disrupting the landscape, and making it look like a herd of elephants had gone through.'
Danny added that the use of multiple iPhones and drones in 'arrays' allowed 'certain visceral moments of the film' to be even more impactful, allowing viewers to 'push inside' the two-dimensional shot in front of them before being 'thrown back out again'.
Similarly, he told Wired: 'Filming with iPhones allowed us to move without huge amounts of equipment.
'A lot of Northumbria [where 28 Years Later was shot] looks like it would have looked 1,000 years ago. So we were able to move quickly and lightly to areas of the countryside that we wanted to retain their lack of human imprint.'
During a separate interview with IGN, he also conceded that the iPhone-quality filming felt like something of a callback to 28 Days Later's shooting techniques.
'We decided to carry it as an influence,' he explained.
It's not just the use of iPhones as filming equipment that has generated conversation around 28 Years Later, though.
The movie's dramatic climax has also raised plenty of eyebrows – with Danny having recently explained the meaning behind those perplexing final scenes.
28 Years Later is in cinemas now, with its sequel currently slated for release in January.
Danny Boyle Is Planning A Whole 28 Years Later Trilogy – Here's Everything He's Said So Far
28 Years Later Director Danny Boyle Reveals Meaning Behind That Truly Wild Twist Ending
Jodie Comer Says Watching Old Clips Of Cheryl Is Helping Her With Her New Horror Role (Yes, Really!)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Holt McCallany Talks Partying With Tom Cruise, Returning To Netflix For ‘The Waterfront' & Gearing Up For His Directorial Debut
The Waterfront. Holt McCallany as Harlan Buckley in episode 102 of The Waterfront. Cr. Dana ... More Hawley/Netflix © 2025 To say Holt McCallany's career exploded following his breakout role in Netflix's Mindhunter would be an understatement. Less than a decade after playing FBI profiler Bill Tench opposite Jonathan Groff's Holden Ford in the acclaimed serial killer drama, the longtime character actor found himself at the exclusive Soho Farmhouse just outside London, celebrating Tom Cruise's 60th birthday alongside such entertainment luminaries as Jerry Bruckheimer, Anne Hathaway, Sam Mendes, and James Corden. 'There was a lot of love in the room,' he remembers over Zoom. 'Yeah, I suppose it would be easy to say that when you're the biggest movie star in the world and your films have made billions of dollars at the global box office, it inspires goodwill. But it was more than that. People had flown in from all over the world to be there at that party, and it really was a wonderful event.' The event was so wonderful, in fact, that McCallany, who was in the United Kingdom for the production of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (currently playing in theaters nationwide; click here for tickets), decided to go all-out for his own 60th celebration the following year at a classic Hollywood institution. 'I shared a car with Esai Morales [who plays The Final Reckoning's mysterious villain, Gabriel] on the way home and said to him, 'You know, man? I wasn't going to throw a party for my 60th, but now that I saw Tom's party, I know that I have to have a party.' Mine not was not quite as lavish. I did it at Musso and Frank, just because I happen to like that old school Hollywood vibe. I invited, just as Tom had done, people that had been with me since the beginning of my journey. And it was a really memorable evening, but had I not been invited to Tom's party, I probably wouldn't have had one of my own.' NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 18: Holt McCallany arrives at the US Premiere of "Mission: Impossible – The ... More Final Reckoning" at Lincoln Center Plaza in New York, New York on May 18, 2025. (Photo byfor Paramount Pictures) After decades of starring opposite A-listers like Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Rami Malek, and Liam Neeson, and more McCallany says he's developed a nifty immunity to becoming starstruck. As such, sharing the same space as Cruise, Angela Bassett, and Nick Offerman for the latest Mission: Impossible (his second espionage-related project of 2025 after The Amateur) didn't seem as daunting as it might have been for an industry neophyte. 'When we get out there on the set, we're playing for the same team and you have your position to play,' he explains. 'If Tom Cruise is like the Tom Brady of movie stars, Tom Brady still needs somebody to throw the ball to. He still needs somebody to block for him. Filmmaking is a team sport … We're all actors and our job is to try to make this particular scene that we're shooting on this particular day as good as it can possibly be.' The Amateur and The Final Reckoning, however, were only the appetizers to McCallany's action-packed summer, which also includes the release of a brand-new Netflix series, The Waterfront (all eight episodes are now streaming). Created by slasher maven Kevin Williamson (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer), the engaging family crime drama molded in the vein of Ozark centers around a North Carolina fishing dynasty forced to smuggle drugs in order to keep itself afloat — no pun intended. 'Somebody said to me the other day in an interview, 'How would you feel if people compared the show to things like Ozark and Succession?'' shares McCallany. 'And I said, 'I'd be very flattered, because those are iconic shows and we should be so fortunate as to be considered in that category.'' Despite Williamson's horror background, the writer actually comes from a family of seafaring folk, hence the overtly maritime setting and hook-handed villain of I Know What You Did Last Summer. 'He's been very open about the fact that his father was, at one time, involved in smuggling — I think it was marijuana — back in the '80s. Of course, now people buy marijuana at the corner store, but it wasn't like that in those days," says McCallany, who plays Harlan, the grizzled and booze-swigging patriarch of the Buckley clan: wife Belle (Maria Bello), son Cane (Jake Weary), and daughter Bree (Melissa Benoist). 'A lot of the the experiences that Harlan has are drawn from that. It's kind of semi-autobiographical in a way,' notes the actor. "So I felt an responsibility to really do the character justice. I always feel that. I never want a writer or a director to feel like, 'Oh, I got the wrong guy,' or, 'This guy didn't understand the character,' or 'This guy gave me a performance, but it wasn't the performance that I wanted.'" While he's taken a step back from day-to-day operations in recent years, Harlan (whose methods are ruthlessly old school) is forced to intervene when his son's recklessness not only draws suspicion from DEA Agent Marcus Sanchez (Gerardo Celasco) but the ire and interest of dangerous criminals like Topher Grace's Grady. 'I liked the way that Harlan was written and Kevin seemed to like the way that I was playing him,' adds McCallany. 'And so, we had this very easygoing kind of relationship, which I was grateful for because above all else, I wanted the experience of shooting The Waterfront to be fun. I really liked the other people in the cast. I love the little town of Wilmington, North Carolina [where we shot] … With a show like Mindhunter, we were always delving into the psychological underpinnings of sexually-motivated homicides and these gruesome murders … It was heavy stuff. It was dark. And this is a different kind of a show. It's lighter. It's a crime drama. It's a family drama, yes, but it has humor and it has sex appeal. I think it's got a little bit of something for everyone." Even with a plethora of acting opportunities on his plate, McCallany has impressively found the time to prep his directorial debut, an American remake of the 1995 Italian film The Star Maker by Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso). In addition to serving as director, the actor also co-wrote the screenplay with collaborator Noel Lawrence and input from David Fincher (whom McCallany has worked with three times since 1992). 'We spent two years in script revisions with David and the thing became exponentially better by an order of magnitude,' he teases. 'In the past, whether it was Alien 3, Fight Club, or Mindhunter, I was always working as an actor-for-hire, for David. So you come in, the script is written, the project is already cast, the locations are chosen, and you just have your responsibilities as an actor to execute. It's very different when you come with a piece of material and say, 'Hey, how about this?' I was just really fortunate that he happened to like the thing that I had chosen, so he gave me a lot of his time. That was really valuable to me.' LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 10: (L-R) Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany and David Fincher attend the LFF ... More Connects Special Presentation: "Mindhunter" European Premiere during the 61st BFI London Film Festival on October 10, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Tim P. Whitby/ Getty Images for BFI)
Vogue
an hour ago
- Vogue
No One Can Stop Dua Lipa From Naked Dressing
Airports fear her, stadiums bow at her feet, Negronis magically appear when she walks into the room and opaque fabrics quake in her presence. For Dua Lipa, life is one endless vacanza—filled with sold-out arenas, back-to-back luxury holidays ('I just make everything I do feel like a holiday,' she told British Vogue), and a stage wardrobe that gives Cher, Kylie and the Spice Girls a run for their money. @dualipa Proving her allegiance to naked dressing, Dua hit the after-party celebrating two sold-out nights at Wembley Stadium in a sheer Balenciaga dress, dripping in Bulgari diamonds, dirty martini in hand and Callum Turner on her arm. Accessorized with enviable abs, this was an unapologetically glam example of her ongoing commitment to skin-baring dressing, both on and off stage. @dualipa Unless you've been living under a rock (or not keeping up to date on this very website), you'll know that this summer, sheer dressing is everywhere. Whether it's saccharine see-through skirts or billowy boho blouses, naked dressing is no longer reserved for the red carpet, with transparent fabrics and peekaboo pieces becoming as common place as a tank top at a Charli XCX concert or Hunter boots at Glastonbury. Dua, aside from being extremely good at giving us candid glimpses at the pop star life, has proven herself to be a fashion girl through and through, taking this trend to new heights in custom bodysuits from Valentino, Courrèges and Swarovski. So, if florals are for spring, then sheer is for summer—with Dua being the ultimate poster girl for the trend.
Tom's Guide
an hour ago
- Tom's Guide
When is '28 Years Later' coming to streaming? Here's our best guess
Released decades after the second movie, "28 Years Later" sees original "28 Days Later" director Danny Boyle reuniting with writer Alex Garland to deliver a thrilling third installment of the post-apocalyptic horror saga. The first in a planned trilogy, "28 Years Later" whisks us away to a remote community of British survivors living on the island of Lindisfarne. There, we meet 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), who lives with his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and ailing mother, Isla (Jodie Comer). In the film, Spike embarks on a mission onto the British mainland — which is still under quarantine and overrun by terrifying monsters infected with the Rage Virus — and this journey brings him up close with the horrors that lie beyond the comforts of his humble Northumbrian home. It's a thrilling and frequently surprising watch, and has seriously impressed viewers to date (it's 89% on Rotten Tomatoes) and made a splash at the box office. Despite releasing just days ago at the time of writing, it's already raked in $60 million worldwide (via BoxOfficeMojo). That's great news for the franchise, though it does mean we'll probably be waiting a little while for the as-yet-unconfirmed "28 Years Later" streaming date. Nevertheless, if you're waiting to watch the movie from the comfort of your own home, here's my best guess at when "28 Years Later" might come to streaming services. Currently, the only way to watch "28 Years Later" is by seeing it on the big screen. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. It recently opened in theaters on Friday, June 20, so we'll be waiting a while before it comes to streaming. And unless Sony Pictures' release strategy changes, it'll first arrive on premium video-on-demand (PVOD) storefronts. At the time of writing, we don't have a confirmed "28 Years Later" streaming date, nor a PVOD digital release date, either. However, that won't prevent me from guessing when the post-apocalyptic sequel might come to streaming. We know that Sony Pictures releases come to Netflix, so that's where "28 Years Later" will eventually make its streaming debut. And while we don't have an official date, I'd guess that "28 Years Later" will come to streaming services at some point this fall, likely September or October. That's based on the average 3-4 month wait for Sony's movies to come to streaming. For example, "Venom: The Last Dance" came to Netflix on February 25, four months after its theatrical release in October 2024. Similarly, "Kraven the Hunter" came to the streamer in March 2025, three months after its theatrical release, and we waited four months for "Saturday Night" to land on Netflix back in January. Of course, this is still just a guess, but as soon as we get an official "28 Years Later" streaming date, we'll be sure to share it here, so keep checking back. And if you're looking for Netflix recommendations while you wait for "28 Years Later" to arrive, be sure to check out our round-up of the best Netflix movies you should be streaming right now.
