Searching for Sugar Man may have never been completed were it not for an Apple iPhone and a $2 iPhone video app, Mashable reports.
According to the social media news Web site, the filmmakers were forced to get creative when the movie ran out of funding, with just a few scenes left to shoot. The final scenes were shot using documentary director Malik Bendjelloul's iPhone and the 8mm Vintage Camera app by Nexvio.
The result: footage that is indistinguishable from the rest of the documentary, which was shot using 8mm film. The video photography application features various filters, allowing users to add light leaks, dust particles or scratches, instantly aging the footage and giving it a vintage feel.
"I started shooting on super-8 film, which is expensive, and I ran out of money," Bendjelloul told CNN. Admitting he needed the additional shots to successfully complete the documentary, he opted to use the Nexvio app. "The result was almost as good as the real stuff, quite amazing."
Searching for Sugar Man is the first production featuring scenes shot on a smartphone to receive an Academy Award.
According to Hongyu Chi, president of Nexvio, the application has been used in the production of Indie music videos, but this is the first feature film he knows of to use the app. Chi described the use of the company's app in the award-winning documentary as "the wildest dream come true".
The documentary details the exploits of two Cape Town-based Rodriguez fans as they attempt to track down the illusive musician. The American rock hero was never successful in the US, but became an accidental music legend in SA during the 70s.
In an interview with Esquire, Pepperdine University film professor Craig Detweiler described this kind of use of technology as a case of "form matching function". According to Detweiler, the iPhone app matched Bendjelloul's intention to recreate a lost era of footage, as he used it to add imperfections to the recordings in order to make it appear more authentic. "That's not cutting corners," he said. "That's smart filmmaking."
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