Mastering Apple ProRes RAW and Cinematic Video Capture Protocols

Apple has officially bridged the gap between consumer smartphones and professional cinema cameras. With the integration of ProRes video recording and computational Cinematic Mode, modern iPhones are legitimate filmmaking tools. Here is how to unlock their full potential.

Understanding ProRes Recording

Standard smartphone video is highly compressed to save space, which destroys color data. ProRes is a low-compression, high-data-rate codec used in Hollywood. When you record in ProRes Log, the footage looks flat and gray, but it retains massive amounts of dynamic range, allowing you to perfectly color-grade the shadows and highlights in post-production.

The External SSD Workflow

ProRes files are gigantic—a single minute of 4K footage can exceed 6GB. To use this feature practically, you must connect a high-speed USB-C solid-state drive (SSD) directly to your phone. The camera app will recognize the drive and record the massive video files straight to the external storage.

Perfecting Cinematic Mode

Cinematic Mode uses AI to simulate the shallow depth-of-field (blurry background) of expensive camera lenses. The true magic lies in editing: because the depth map is saved with the video file, you can actually change the focus point from the foreground to the background after you have finished recording.