Our final day of shooting Filly Brown was filled with a variety of last-minute shots, notably an insert which required a prop iPhone playing a video. The clip was exported to H.264 and tested on my personal iPhone 4. I rushed to set knowing I would transfer the clip via Internet.
If only it had been that easy. I understand the argument for having an SD slot on the iPhone.
Problem #1 – Not a prop
Our "prop" iPhone 3G actually belonged to a crew member. This means I couldn't just wipe it as needed.
Problem #2 – iTunes
The computer used to sync the iPhone wasn't available. For this reason I couldn't use my copy of iTunes because this forces you to wipe the device.
Problem #3 – AT&T coverage
Emailing the video clip was terribly slow because of AT&T's poor wireless coverage in the area.
Problem #4 – Virgin Mobile coverage
Our Virgin Mobile Mifi adapter also had poor reception – no improvement here.
Problem #5 – Adobe Flash
Suffering through a slow transfer using Virgin's Mifi I tried WeTransfer.com for a web-to-browser transfer. I discovered that WeTransfer requires Flash on the client to download the file. There is no Flash on the iPhone.
Problem #6 – Wifi transfer
I attempted a MacBook-to-iPhone transfer using wifi. That didn't work either because the Virgin Mifi adapter doesn't support infrastructure/ad-hoc networks – only direct to Internet.
Problem #7 – iOS 3
I used Dropbox and the iPhone app Download Manager Pro Lite to retrieve the clip. After a lengthy upload and download with AT&T Wireless, I opened the clip to discover that iOS 3.13 doesn't play it. Apparently there are limitations with H.264 in iOS 3 compared with my test on iOS 4.1.
The clip was re-exported out of Compressor using an iPhone specific setting and re-transferred via Dropbox.
Finally…success.
What We Learned
The entire process took hours to complete and most of the time was spent waiting for slow transfers. Some/all of the problems could have been avoided with more preparation but that's not always an option during a shoot.
An SD card slot would have been ideal. No wireless transfers over slow broadband, no iTunes limitations, no requirements for Adobe Flash.
Apple's reliance on wireless or iTunes sync works well…in a perfect world. However, the world is not perfect and we sailed into a perfect storm of events that revealed limitations of our technology – particularly the iPhone.
I'll do things differently next time but it won't stop me from searching for a direct method of iPhone transfers, SD slot or not.
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