Kroi’s Method Shot with Blackmagic Camera and Graded in DaVinci Resolve Studio
Music video filmed using more than 40 iPhones with Blackmagic Camera App.
Blackmagic Design today announced that the music video for the band Kroi’s song “Method” was shot using the Blackmagic Camera app and graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio. The unique production was filmed with more than 40 iPhones running the Blackmagic Camera app, capturing the band’s performance from 360 degrees. The video has already surpassed 9.2 million views on YouTube in just two months since its release and continues to gain momentum.
The video was directed by Taichi Kimura, who has created numerous music videos for well known artists. For this project, he surrounded the band in the studio with iPhones running the Blackmagic Camera app and used split screens to create a dynamic, high energy look.
“To be honest, I was extremely busy at the time because I was also preparing for a film shoot,” Kimura recalled. “I thought it might be easier if I just lined up a lot of cameras so I wouldn’t have to direct everything on set. But once we started, the staff had their hands full, and editing became much harder than I expected!”
Kimura continued: “From a creative direction standpoint, Kroi requested something energetic. I didn’t want to rely on camera movement to create that energy, since I’d done that before. I’ve always liked Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows – From the Basement’ video, where they used fixed cameras and expressed energy through editing instead. I thought that approach would be interesting. And if we were going to do it, we might as well go over the top with the number of cameras! There wasn’t any technical reason behind the number — I just went with what felt right. In the end, including backups, we used around 47 iPhones.”
“At first, I actually wanted to shoot it with 40 VHS cameras. But that was technically difficult, and renting 40 cinema cameras wasn’t realistic from a budget standpoint. So we decided on iPhones, since they look cool even when they appear in the shot,” Kimura said.
The system design for the shoot was handled by Seiji Uchida, who explained:
“We installed the Blackmagic Camera app on every iPhone, synced them using the Tentacle Sync app, and set up a wired network so all devices could be controlled from a single iPad. Camera settings were managed centrally over the network, and all footage was recorded onto each iPhone’s internal SSD. When I discussed the setup with the Blackmagic Design’s development team at Inter BEE 2024, they told me that, theoretically, I could sync as many cameras as the network bandwidth allowed. I tested it, and it worked flawlessly with 40 cameras.”
“Although we didn’t have time to use it for this shoot, I think the Blackmagic Camera ProDock would have made things even smoother. The ProDock would make everything neater with aligned connectors, plus hardware based sync would be ideal. I’d definitely like to try it next time,” Uchida added.
The color grading was done by Yoshiyuki Nishida of ARTONE FILM, using DaVinci Resolve Studio and the DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel.
“After discussing it with the director, we decided to go for a clean, unembellished look,” said Nishida. “It’s a high quality image without unnecessary texture — in a good way. My personal interpretation was to treat it almost like surveillance footage, just ‘recording what’s there.’ So I didn’t use any film emulation LUTs. I started with the default LUT and made only subtle adjustments for a natural finish.”
Finally, Kimura reflected: “I really like the overhead shots and close ups of the piano and hands — angles that would be difficult to achieve with larger cameras. Without the Blackmagic Camera app, shooting simultaneously with more than 40 iPhones would have been impossible.”
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