OnePlus’s United by Hope Documentary
Art is more about the artist and not always about the tools. With the right set of tools, the artist can express his creativity but that does not mean that the tool deserves all the credit. It is a sweet partnership where the artist and the tool enable each other to create a piece of art. Photography is also one such art. Being a professional photographer, when I share my work with the world, the first comment that would hit the timeline would be “which camera?”. I used to be offended when someone gives the tool that credit and not the artist. But with the experience, I realized that the tools of the trade have come so far to be the artist themselves. Anyone wielding such a powerful tool can create art, but all they would need is the vision and creativity.
OnePlus mobiles have powerful videography capabilities. They are one of the first in the segment to provide EIS for 4K videos. OnePlus mobiles are generally criticized for their cameras. But the brand takes up the criticism so seriously and put in all their effort to improve the cameras in their mobiles. In an attempt to showcase this effort, OnePlus has created a Documentary titled “United by Hope”.
The documentary was shot exclusively on OnePlus mobiles. It is produced by VICE Media. The short movie is about the lives of 12 individuals and they dealt with the pandemic. It is a story of feelings and emotions capturing the lives of people across many cities across the world. There is one thing that connects humanity and keeps us going – Hope; and this documentary is all about Hope and why we need it more than ever.
The documentary cast includes prominent personalities such as Kubbra Sait, popular actress, author and anchor, Dinesh Karthik, renowned Indian cricketer and IPL Captain of Kolkata Knight Riders, Bhaichung Bhutia, former Captain of the Indian football team, and Richa Chadha, a critically acclaimed actress from popular movies like Masaan and Fukrey, among several others.
In the past, we have seen brands like Huawei and Apple with such efforts to create motion pictures and short movies using mobiles. The United by Hope documentary is also shot on OnePlus which included devices from OnePlus 6T onwards, and also included the recently launched OnePlus 8 Series 5G. The footage is of course processed and color graded but that is to maintain consistency in the production quality and also to keep the viewer focused. Though the mobiles have EIS or OIS, at certain places we can see that software processing has been applied for stabilization during post-production. But I can’t help but appreciate the fact that the entire documentary was genuinely shot with OnePlus mobiles.
The audio seems to have been captured by an external mic and dubbed to sync during post processing. But for most part of the documentary, the footage seems to have been subject to very less post-processing other than the consistent color grading.
The United by Hope documentary can be accessed on OnePlus India YouTube channel here. It is also available across OnePlus India’s social media channels.
