In the following interview, Iranian filmmaker Nousha Saidi takes us behind the scenes in the making of her autobiographical short film HELLO MEMOIRS. The film, entered in the 2015 iPhone Film Festival, was shot using a Galaxy s4.

MMM: Can you tell us how you got the idea for HELLO MEMOIRS?

Nousha: The idea for HELLO MEMOIRS comes from an old preoccupation. I always thought (and still think) about the world technological changes during my lifetime. Such a large amount of changes in just around 40 years?!

MMM: Why did you choose to make your movie using a smartphone rather than a traditional camera?

 Nousha: Using a smartphone for shooting HELLO MEMOIRS was firstly to have a new experience. On the other hand, I found a fine relationship between the film subject and the Galaxy.

MMM: Can you tell us about the steps you went through in making your movie?

Nousha: HELLO MEMOIRS, was made in my house living room and with the help of my husband, Iman Ashtiani, as the cameraman! The whole film was shot and edited in just 10 hours, but after days and days of exercises.

MMM: Did it require any special equipment?

Nousha: After lots of search among the Galaxy Apps, I used an application named SnapMovie to make this short movie.

MMM: Did you encounter any unexpected problems?

Nousha:I believe that new experiences always come with problems and in making this short video, it was the same. I encountered lots of small problems during this filmmaking process, which the most important was, the mobile camera’s auto-focus problem in the movie’s first plans, when I was working on a plain white paper.

MMM: How did you handle that challenge?

Nousha: The final solution for this problem was putting some decorative pens on the scene!

MMM: How did you learn that kind of trouble-shooting? Did you go to film school?

Nousha:  No. I have a Bachelor of Arts in French Literature and a Masters degree in Marketing; completely different from what I am doing these days! Movie Making was always my dream and since some years ago, I have started to learn it by myself. But during the recent two years, I am working more professionally on Documentary Filmmaking field and I have attended many precious courses with the international well known filmmakers. In this regard, I have attended Ross McElwee, Leonard Retel Helmrich, Mehrdad Oskouei and … Filmmaking courses and lectures.

MMM: Is there any advice you have for others who would be interested in making stop-motion (animated) movies using a smartphone?

Nousha: Making stop-motions by smartphone requires you to be patient and to devote lots of time to the preproduction step.

MMM: That’s the same kind of advice you get from big budget filmmakers.

Nousha: Yes, but these days, you don’t need to have an expensive camera and gear to be a good filmmaker. No matter what we use as our filming equipment, just we should have a good idea!

MMM: Anything else we should know about you?

Nousha: I love filmmaking! And I hope readers will  follow my art interests and activities on my Facebook: Facebook.com/noushasaidi