We linked, a couple of weeks ago to this, the best Nokia 808 PureView showcase video yet created, getting over its unique camera advantages pretty well, short of physically getting your hands on one. We now have a little bit of the back story of how the video was created, in the hands of James Heath and agency Hugo & Cat, which I found very interesting.

From the Conversations piece:

“It made us laugh when we read some of the reactions to the piece. People thought we had a full crew, actors and complex lighting rigs. In reality, we had none of that. The people just happened to be there, either for the Carnival or from a friendly local Samba school.”

When James’ team normally produces a video, they work with the latest DSLR cameras. So what was it like working with the Nokia 808 PureView? 

“Well, I think the results speak for themselves – though to be honest, working with such a small device, that’s also a phone – the quality absolutely baffles us. Our key concern was battery life. We were working long days and shooting a lot of video – and that’s going to take it out of any camera phone. It didn’t let us down, though."

“Working with a camera phone, we were able to get pictures that we wouldn’t have been able to take with a DSLR. Because it’s a phone, you can get closer to people, deeper into scenarios, without people becoming self-aware. Also, bear in mind this was a top-secret new product at the time. So we were really paranoid about it being spotted. But people weren’t curious. The sight of someone shooting video with a phone at Carnival isn’t exactly uncommon…

“What I’d say to people considering the phone is, don’t concentrate on the 41-megapixels. Concentrate on the great results at 5-megapixels. The low light imagery we used in the film was taken at that resolution."