The Afterparty Director Had to Fight to Shoot Found Footage Episode With iPhone

Apple TV+ recently released the highly anticipated second season of their hit series The Afterparty, and it was released with a Certified Fresh rating on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. From everything we’ve seen in the trailers, The Afterparty Party II looks pretty hilarious, and fans of the series will enjoy what happens. One of the funniest episodes contains found footage from an iPhone, and the director behind the camera reveals that he had to fight using an actual iPhone camera to shoot the footage. While speaking with ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian to promote The Afterparty, director Eric Appel revealed that he had to push for them to use an iPhone for the found footage moment.

“Well, you know, I did a Quibi show back when that was around. So, I was used to shooting vertical stuff as well. My approach to it, as weird as it sounds, is like I treated it as seriously as if it were one of the other film genres,” Appel revealed. “One of my big pet peeves is when I see iPhone footage in a movie or TV show and it doesn’t look like real iPhone footage, it looks like it was shot with an Alecia or something. It’s just a lot slicker. I went through great lengths to try to make this actually look like it was shot by some 17 year old kid holding it vertically. Even though the camera operator, Grant, who handled all this footage was the steady cam operator for Power of the Dog, he’s like a brilliant camera operator. I remember I had, I kept having to tell him to like, ‘dumb it down.’ I’m like, ‘You have to make this look worse. Grant, it’s gotta look like some, like some… I love what you’re doing. It has to look like a kid who’s not a professional and he’s 17 years old, you know, holding this thing,’” 

The House Party Part II director continued to reveal that he had to convince the studio to use an iPhone camera for the episode. “And I shot this with, um, this took a little bit of convincing but we shot with like the native iPhone camera app. I remember everyone wanted to shoot with Filmic Pro. So we’d have more control over the raw image. And I was like, ‘It’s gotta look authentic. Like when you pinch to zoom in, we have to see that moment when the lenses change and there’s still that little blip and things go out of focus.’ Like, so, you know, I did take it very seriously and, you know, and try to give an authentic found footage experience.”

What is The Afterparty Season 2 About?

Here’s how Apple TV+ describes The Afterparty Season 2:

“Created by Miller, each episode of The Afterparty is a genre-bending comedy that explores a different character’s account of one fateful evening, all told through the lens of popular film genres and unique visuals to match the storyteller’s perspective. Stars Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoë Chao reprise their roles for Season 2, which will introduce a new case and an expanded cast of characters played by John Cho, Paul Walter Hauser, Ken Jeong, Anna Konkle, Poppy Liu, Elizabeth Perkins, Jack Whitehall, Zach Woods, and Vivian Wu.

“In Season 2, a wedding is ruined when the groom is murdered and every guest is a suspect. Detective Danner (Haddish) returns to help Aniq (Richardson) and Zoë (Chao) solve whodunnit by questioning family members, star-crossed lovers, and business partners, and hearing each suspect’s retelling of the weekend, each with their own unique perspective and visual style.”

The Afterparty Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV+. Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for more updates on the series as we learn them.

What do you think about this? Have you seen The Afterparty Season 2 yet? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @NateBrail up on Twitter!