Skier Uses iPhone to Create Cool “Centriphone” Effect

Photography Tips

New trends in photography and videography—drones, selfie sticks, GoPros—have no doubt given us some unique and interesting perspectives on our everyday life and surroundings. But one Swiss filmmaker has gone even further and come up with his own incredibly creative way to view the world. Nicolas Vuignier has devised a way to film a 360 degree view of himself skiing down a snow-covered mountain, using just his iPhone—a technique he has dubbed “Centriphone”—and it’s pretty amazing:

A professional freestyle skier from Switzerland, Vuignier is also a self-taught graphic designer and video editor. Because of his love of technology and filmmaking, he spent two years trying to perfect his “Centriphone” effect to portray his passion in a new and exciting way.

Shot entirely on an iPhone 6, his video experiment is a beautiful and inspiring project, filled with slow motion, sort of bullet time, Matrix-style shots. I say sort of because the idea behind bullet time is to use many video cameras recording around the object, while Vuignier uses just one camera.

The concept seems simple—tie your iPhone to a string and swing it over your head, relying on the powers of centrifugal force. Easy, right? Well, the method took some time to perfect. Vuignier told CNET his biggest challenge was figuring out how to stabilize the phone while skiing at high speeds. As he explained, his forward movement was causing turbulent wind, making the phone spin uncontrollably.

He solved the problem by using a custom-made 3D printed rig. He attached an Olloclip wide angle lens to his 64GB iPhone 6, and used the Apple camera app at 240 fps, slowed down by 10 percent.

While the video may appear to be the next iPhone ad to many, it shouldn’t be looked at as a shameless promotion. The point is Vuignier came up with a uniquely creative idea that takes nothing but a smartphone (and, of course, some mad skiing skills) to execute. There’s no fancy production equipment, just one man, a smartphone, and a makeshift rig.

Tell us about your next creative photography or film project in the comments below, we always want to hear about new ideas and techniques!