Kroger Health’s new campaign starring Joe Burrow captures 3 storylines all with the iPhone Pro in 4k log.
SMALL CAMERA. BIG PRODUCTION.
Behind Kroger Health’s “Progress,” starring Joe Burrow and shot entirely on iPhone.
Created by Kroger’s in-house Kroger Creative team, with Portland, Oregon–based Sockeye Creative as production company and partner, “Progress” connects three storylines: Joe Burrow training and eating well to meet the demands of professional football, a young girl running track while managing asthma, and a couple navigating late pregnancy and the birth of their first child. For director Adam Jones, the storytelling was the real joy—bringing authenticity, performance, and movement to life’s big moments while showing how Kroger Health supports each journey.
The assignment also came with a healthy challenge: shoot it entirely on an iPhone 16 Pro.
The camera would be smaller. The expectations would not.
Jones and cinematographer Jimmy Lindsey, ASC, researched the available equipment and assembled two identical rigs. Each phone needed external recording hardware, a Teradek transmitter for director and client monitors, additional power, and a hub connecting everything.
By the time it was ready for a professional set, the phone had acquired a substantial entourage.
The challenges extended beyond the rig. With this setup, Lindsey handled focus by tapping the screen while composing and moving the camera. Shifting focus between foreground and background demanded carefully timed touches, while bright sunlight sometimes made the display difficult to judge. Exposure checks required additional radio communication with the digital imaging technician before rolling.
Lensing presented another creative boundary. The iPhone’s three built-in rear lenses—a 13mm ultrawide, 24mm main, and 120mm telephoto, in 35mm-equivalent terms—replaced the team’s usual choice of cinema glass. That meant less flexibility with depth of field and fewer opportunities to select lenses for their particular character. None of this made the shoot substantially cheaper or easier. Many capabilities normally integrated into a cinema camera had simply moved outside it.
But the image delivered.
Captured in Log and professionally graded, “Progress” achieved the polished production value the assignment demanded. Lindsey embraced the experiment, worked through its frustrations, and did an exceptional job making the technology serve the spot.
For Jones, that made the challenge worthwhile. Not because the iPhone offered a shortcut, but because the finished work never needed the qualification “pretty good for an iphone.”
Link to finished spot: https://vimeo.com/1199536576