Rian Johnson's New Apple Project Has Officially Conquered the Global Top 10

Rian Johnson has spent the better part of two decades making movies that look absolutely gorgeous, whether it’s the dusty, sun-drenched landscapes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi or the wonderfully stylish murder mysteries of his Knives Out franchise. His cinematography, thanks for his longtime collaborator Steve Yedlin, is always truly on point but, while most filmmakers are content to leave their tricks on the big screen, we’re all getting the chance to make our lives look like a Rian Johnson movie.

Johnson’s new iPhone photography app, Chromagraph Camera, has officially reached No. 1 on Apple’s U.S. App Store Photo & Video chart, having also topped the overall paid-app rankings. Developed alongside Yedlin and programmer Eric Cameron, the $12.99 app allows users to capture photographs using image-processing techniques developed for Johnson’s movies, including Knives Out, Glass Onion, and Wake Up Dead Man.

Chromagraph removes the filters that Apple adds automatically to its imagery and instead, it captures RAW image data and processes it independently, while using custom techniques to control color, contrast, texture, grain, and halation. In other words, the images come out looking like you’re in a Johnson movie. Benoit Blanc would be thrilled.

• The first film not in the English language to win Best Picture, in the Academy’s
  92-year history to that point.
• It took four Oscars in one night: Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and International
  Feature.
• It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2019 by a unanimous jury vote, the first Korean film
  to do so.
• The Park family’s modernist house was not a location. It was built from scratch on an
  outdoor lot.

• Seven Oscars, including three acting wins for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee
  Curtis.
• Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress.
• The visual effects were handled by a team of fewer than ten people, most of them
  self-taught.
• Ke Huy Quan had all but left acting for two decades before this role brought him back.

• Seven Oscars, including Nolan’s first wins for directing and for Best Picture.
• Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. both took their first Academy Awards for it.
• Kodak engineered a black-and-white 65mm stock that did not previously exist so Nolan could
  shoot those sequences on IMAX.
• A three-hour, R-rated drama about theoretical physics that passed 950 million dollars
  worldwide.

• Four Oscars, among them Best Picture and Best Director for Iñárritu.
• Emmanuel Lubezki’s win here was the middle of three consecutive cinematography Oscars,
  after Gravity and before The Revenant.
• Antonio Sánchez’s improvised drum score was ruled ineligible for the score category,
  which caused a minor uproar.
• The long-take illusion was built from a handful of extended shots joined by hidden cuts.

• Four Oscars: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem.
• Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel, with much of his dialogue carried over
  intact.
• Carter Burwell’s score runs about sixteen minutes and is nearly inaudible by design.
• Roger Deakins was nominated twice that year, for this and The Assassination of Jesse James,
  and won for neither.

What Makes Rian Johnson’s New Camera App Different?

Johnson revealed that the project began because he wanted a better way to take photographs on his own iPhone, which is something we’ve all experienced, really. Having a cinematographer as one of your best buds is handy, though, and so the pair decided they’d make their own app to make photography the way they think it should be.

The app takes an approach similar to traditional film photography, with users capturing their images before seeing the finished results in a separate gallery. From there, they can adjust the color, exposure, grain, and texture while preserving the original RAW files, before exporting their photographs as JPEG or HEIC images.

Yedlin has worked with Johnson throughout his filmmaking career, including on Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and the three Knives Out movies, and Chromagraph effectively brings a version of how he shoots movies into an iPhone. And it’s gone viral already, with Johnson’s original announcement reportedly attracting approximately six million views within its first day, and shooting it straight to number one in the App Store. Bodes well for Johnson’s next movie!

Chromagraph Camera is available now on the Apple App Store for $12.99 as a one-time purchase.

Knives Out