I was reading my NYU Alumni magazine this week and came across an article about an app for finding famous movie and TV locations. Put together by an NYU grad Gadi Harel from the class of '93, Reel Estates started from his own curiosity about visiting the real locations of pop culture touchtones, like the Brady home in Studio City, LA.
The app is location based and will show you what notable filming sites are nearby... perfect when tooling around NYC or Hollywood. But also, the app covers the rest of the country too with places like the BREAKING BAD house in New Mexico. Harel has more than 600 famous sites listed in the app. I need to add this one to my iPhone and, finally, go in search of the Archie Bunker residence in my now-native Queens.
The documentary SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN, which has been nominated for an Academy Award, was partially shot using a $1.99 iPhone app. The story of the film itself is remarkable, about an Detroit singer unknown in the U.S. but wildly popular in South Africa in the 1970s. The filmmaker, Malik Benjeliou, was originally shooting his b-roll on Super-8 film to get that groovy, 70s vibe. But, like all indie filmmakers, he ran out of money. Enter the iPhone app called iSuper8 (of course) that recreates the look of that classic stock by shooting with an iPhone. Voila--film saved.
Malik shows exactly how he did it on this piece that ran on CNN last night. It's a very clever move by a filmmaker whose efforts have been rewarded with a trip to the Oscars on Sunday night. Let's hope he shoots some vintage-style footage of the big night on his phone.
