Apple Shares 'Shot on iPhone' Short Film By Lulu Wang for Chinese New Year

Apple today shared a new video in its ongoing "Shot on iPhone" series, this time highlighting a short film about a Chinese New Year legend reimagined as a contemporary coming-of-age story.


Directed by American filmmaker Lulu Wang, "Nian" tells the story of a little girl who grows curious about a mythical creature that lives in the forest and – so her parents say – likes to eat children.

But when her rice cakes are mysteriously eaten in the woods one day by an unseen presence, the little girl begins to wonder if the legend is really true, and fearlessly decides to seek out the creature, who turns out not to be quite as monstrous as her parents' stories suggest.

The heartwarming 12-minute short film was created by the team behind the Golden Globe nominated film "The Farewell" and was shot with an iPhone 12 Pro Max. Apple also included a behind the scenes look at how the film was shot.


Apple has shared several prior videos and photographs in the "Shot on ‌iPhone‌" series. Click the relevant tag at the bottom of this article to see all of our previous coverage.

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
truecaller

Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support

Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers. Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update. iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
iPhone SE 4 Single Camera Thumb 3

iOS 18.3 Leak Provides Clue About iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and iPad Air 7 Launch Timing

Wednesday January 22, 2025 9:39 am PST by
New information has surfaced that indicates the rumored iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and new iPad Air models are nearing launch. A private account on social media platform X today revealed that iOS 18.3 or iPadOS 18.3 will be preinstalled on all of those upcoming devices when they are released. It is still unclear exactly when the devices will launch, but this information suggests that Apple will...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...

Top Rated Comments

Spacetime Anomaly Avatar
52 months ago
For those with questions, there is literally a making-of video in the same post.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
52 months ago

Do you think Apple will ever stop pandering to China?
How is the above short film "pandering to China?"
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
LiE_ Avatar
52 months ago

"Additional hardware used." That means the iphone was only data storage device?
They will use a rig like this.





Edit:
Or we can watch the BTS and see they don’t ?

Attachment Image

Attachment Image
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
locrumo Avatar
52 months ago

They will use a rig like this.


Total cost $ 89.990
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mjtomlin71 Avatar
52 months ago
:)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rp2011 Avatar
52 months ago
wow. just wow.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)