Zack Snyder’s iPhone-shot Short Film “Snow Steam Iron" and the Mobile Filmmaking Revolution
With the recent triumphant release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League on HBO Max, also known as "The Snyder Cut" for those in the loop, it’s a great time to reflect on why this director is a visionary filmmaker who doesn’t pander to audiences with popcorn-ready, bubblegum pop-colored, PG-friendly, branded entertainment. Despite his many detractors & critics, one cannot deny that Zack Snyder is a true visual storyteller that masterfully uses the language of film to tell his stories, whether it be with an Imax cinema camera or a regular iPhone.
Snow Steam Iron is a 4-minute short film that was released exclusively on the social media platform Vero in 2017, the same year he was making "Justice League" - a project he had to walk away from due to family tragedy. His daughter had taken her life by suicide. As a cathartic exercise, feeling the need to work and be creative to get through this emotionally difficult time, he decided to gather some family and friends and shoot this little film over one weekend. And he shot it with an iPhone 7+. Yes, you heard that correctly.
He made this epic short film with a phone just like the one you’re holding in your hand now. It just reminds me of that inspiring quote from legendary photographer, Ansel Adams, who said "the single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it." Think about it.
Visual Storytelling
Film & video is an incredibly powerful and immersive medium. With the combination of sound and moving images it accomplishes two things better than most other media. One, it shows people to people, and two, it can capture and communicate a sense of experience, a sense of "being there". Other traditional media rarely come as close.
When it comes to storytelling, or communicating in general, "telling" the audience is lecturing.
"Showing" the audience is teaching.
When you let the audience "experience the moment" now that is visual storytelling.
When the images are telling the story, we should be able to get an idea of what the story is about, even without narration.
Snyder’s Snow Steam Iron is one such film that has no dialogue or narration and relies purely on the visual language of film to tell its story, one that is made only more visceral and impactful through Snyder’s distinct stylistic choices.
Story Through Images
The story is essentially about a stunning Asian woman, tired of being trapped, degraded and dehumanized by society around her, who decides to finally take justice upon her oppressors only to be put into another state of captivity. Let’s go dive a little deeper into the visual storytelling techniques of its auteur.
Snow Steam Iron opens up with the 3 big bold words of its title, with an accompanying juxtaposed image for each. The word "Snow" is cut with an image of a pail of water housing an exotic fish. "Steam" is cut with the back of a woman sitting on the edge of the bed. "Metal" is cut with a uniformed man beaten on the ground with a gun pointed at him. As we progress through the short film these word and image associations become much clearer.
“Snow” is a form of water that is trapped in a frozen state, yet soft and delicate. The exotic fish in such a small water container symbolizes a beautiful soul trapped by its oppressive surroundings and situation. The woman on the edge of the bed we learn has been groomed to become a kind of prostitute for customers like a physically abusive police chief.
The word "steam" represents her proverbial boiling point, and is also another form of water that wants to escape.
"Iron" of course is the cold & precise material of a gun but is also the protagonist’s iron will. With the non-linear editing of shots and the repetition of images and symbols, we are watching visual poetry.
There is a bittersweet visual irony in the last few images, in that in fighting back her abusers the protagonist is nonetheless convicted for her actions. Early in the film she is being groomed like a geisha for a boudoir-like photo shoot. The film concludes with another photoshoot, a police mugshot, ending with the image of the camera shutter closing, her identity captured and caged once again. Reminds me of the Native American belief of how photographs can steal one’s soul.
It is timely too that the story takes on new significance today with the recent wave of racist anti-Asian violence and hate crimes. Even when an Asian woman tries to defend her human dignity, she is time and time again systemically disregarded, both because she is a woman and she is a person of color.
Mobile Filmmaking
What mobile filmmaking does… is the democratizing of the power of filmmaking so that anyone can become a filmmaker or visual storyteller.
Zack Snyder is no stranger to large-scale projects and epic movie budgets. So why shoot a film on a pocket-sized iPhone? Apparently he wanted to challenge himself with new variables and to literally look at filmmaking through a new lens. Essentially, it was a back-to-basics approach where the director wants to remind us again that the most important part of storytelling is the story.
Armed with an iPhone 7 Plus, and with relatively affordable accessories like the Beastgrip Pro, DJI Osmo mobile gimbal, and shooting with the Filmic Pro camera app, Zack Snyder set out to prove that our vision and imagination should never be limited by the camera we have.
A year before Snow Steam Iron came out I also tried my hand at mobile filmmaking. After years of shooting short films with DSLR cameras as well as the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, I too wanted to challenge myself with crafting a new short film using only my Samsung Galaxy S7 at the time.
It may seem like I skimped on the camera, but I definitely did not skimp on production value nor the scale of the story. The final product was a 20-minute sci-fi action film with zombies, martial arts, time travel and a bunch of VFX while being an allegory for HIV-AIDS awareness and prevention. The smartphone-shot film bagged me a Best Director, Best Production Design and Best Short Film awards at a local film festival, competing with non-smartphone shot films. Ever since then I have been an ardent advocate for mobile filmmaking.
What mobile filmmaking does, and what Zack Snyder is also trying to show us here in his short film, is the democratizing of the power of filmmaking so that anyone can become a filmmaker or visual storyteller. It truly is a revolution because it puts that power to tell our stories directly and quite literally into our hands.
Mental Heath & Creativity
Lastly, a word on mental health, since it’s something I also passionately advocate for and a cause that Zack Snyder and his producer wife Debra Snyder has dedicated to since the passing of their daughter by suicide.
Grief is an all-too-human emotional state and condition that all of us will encounter sometime in our life. Not only does our emotions overwhelm us, but also the search for logic and reason confounds us in these times of personal tragedy.
I find it both interesting and inspiring that Zack Snyder chose to get back into "work" as an outlet for his grieving and mental well-being. Indeed, art and the act of creativity has proven very cathartic and therapeutic for individuals suffering from emotional and psychological difficulties.
For example, my friend “Lamaroc” uses hip-hop breakdancing and deejaying to help him overcome depressive and suicidal thoughts.
Vincent van Gogh painted works like the Starry Starry Night in the darkest period of his life while in a mental institution.
For Zack Snyder, his paintbrush was the camera - an ordinary iPhone at that! - and he expressed himself the best way he knows - as a filmmaker.
Not only that, he also shared this passion for filmmaking with his fans, who helped rally for The Snyder Cut to see the light of day while supporting charitable causes for mental health awareness. Snyder’s fanbase was able to raise half-a-million US dollars for charity to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Filmmakers like Zack Snyder show how important and powerful a piece of art like film can be to not only entertain us, but to inspire us and really change and save lives. You have the power to inspire too, and the means might just be in your pocket.
(There is also a video essay version of this on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/WHZg7hvO3IM)
If you want to support suicide prevention and mental health awareness in general, there’s a link below where you can donate to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Or at the very least, read up on their resources, so you can be more aware of mental health issues like depression and suicide and help break the stigma associated with it.
You can make a donation to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) here: https://afsp.donordrive.com/
