Rian Johnson has teamed with his longtime cinematographer Steve Yedlin on a new iPhone photography app called Chromagraph Camera, which the two-time Oscar-nominated writer and director announced this week. The pair have worked together behind the camera for nearly 30 years.
In a post on X, Johnson said he had pestered Yedlin into building what he described as his ideal iPhone still camera app. According to Johnson, the app shoots in RAW and skips the iPhone's own look processing, applying instead the image processing the pair use on their movies, including Brick, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi and the Knives Out franchise. He said the app is a one-stop-shop that takes beautiful shots with what he called Yedlin's special sauce processing, and that users can fine-tune color, exposure, grain and halation within the app before exporting images to their camera roll.
Yedlin, who told Wired that he writes all of the image processing used on the films himself, said the app is not meant to replace Apple's built-in Camera app. He characterized it as a curated tool that takes pictures the way the filmmakers like them. He also noted current limits: the app only captures photos and offers no video capabilities yet, and he argued that the idea of achieving the control of a professional camera on the device is not really accurate.
Yedlin's most recent collaboration with Johnson was Wake Up Dead Man, the third installment in the Knives Out trilogy at Netflix.
Sources: Deadline.