The camera used to film the Scary fast ad that Apple aired in the early hours of last Tuesday was that of an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Although the equipment on which the camera was installed is professional, the truth is that the sensor, the lens and the application used for all the shots are within the reach of any user. By explaining these details, the apple company reinforces the message that its technology has democratized anyone's access to the production of quality content that was previously not within their reach due to the high cost of professional equipment.
The filming of the half-hour presentation was directed by filmmaker Brian Oakes (Living with Lincoln, Jim: The James Foley Story). The iPhone 15 Pro can record images in the professional ProRes format in 4K resolution at 60 f/s and store them on an external hard drive with Apple Log encoding, allowing you to preserve many of the details when performing color grading in post-production .
When Apple announced a few days ago with an invitation to the press the broadcast of this presentation, which was going to take place at 5 in the afternoon in California, dusk in much of the United States, and dawn in Europe, seemed to have little sense. The Halloween setting of filming at Apple Park now seems less like a celebration, and more like a demonstration of the iPhone at its best as a professional creative instrument.
Apple's phone, introduced last September, is the first in the world to support the global coding standard for color processes used in films, the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES). "With the iPhone 15 Pro Max we were able to achieve images of the same complexity," Oakes said in a company statement. The director considers that "it is incredible that such a compact and portable device offers quality worthy of a $20,000 camera."
Apple has shown the production process, in which you can see Beastgrip equipment to place the iPhone on different and expensive filming structures, from stabilizers to drones, as well as professional lighting, since the advertisement, set at night, was filmed in the Apple Park corporate headquarters in Cupertino. To synchronize all systems, such as sound and image, the Tentacle Sync system was used. In any case, the captures were always with the mobile phone and the quality seen in the images was remarkable.
