Behind the scenes at Scary Fast: iPhones were used to record and edit the company’s keynote event on Macs
An unseen star of the show was working behind the scenes at Apple’s Scary Fast special event on Monday, October 30, which unveiled the all-new MacBook Pro with the M3 family of chips and the 24-inch iMac with M3. The preferred smartphone of creative professionals and filmmakers, the iPhone 15 Pro Max, was used to capture all of the presenters, locations, and drone footage from the event. Under the direction of renowned documentarian Brian Oakes, who directed the critically acclaimed films Living with Lincoln and Jim: The James Foley Story, Scary Fast thrust the iPhone 15 Pro Max squarely into the center of the action.
Black Titanium Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max (1 TB)
About this product
FORGED IN TITANIUM: The iPhone 15 Pro Max features a textured matte-glass back and an aerospace-grade titanium design that is both light and strong. Additionally, it has a Ceramic Shield front, which is more durable than the glass on any smartphone. Moreover, it resists dust, water, and splashes.
ADVANCED DISPLAY: When you require exceptional graphics performance, the 6.7″ Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion ramps up refresh rates to 120Hz. Alerts and live notifications are bubbled up on the dynamic island. Additionally, your Lock Screen remains glanceable thanks to Always-On display, saving you from having to tap it to stay informed.
GAME-CHANGING A17 PRO CHIP: Mobile games with realistic characters and rich environments feel incredibly immersive thanks to a Pro-class GPU. Additionally, A17 Pro is very effective and contributes to providing fantastic all-dayduration of battery.
POWERFUL PRO CAMERA SYSTEM: With seven pro lenses, you can frame shots with amazing flexibility. Take incredibly detailed, colorful, and high-resolution pictures with the 48MP primary camera. Additionally, use the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 5x Telephoto camera to capture closer, crisper close-ups from a distance.
PERSONALIZABLE ACTION BUTTON: The action button directs you to your preferred feature quickly. Simply select the desired option, such as Voice Memo, Shortcut, Camera, Silent mode, and more. The action will then begin by pressing and holding.
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The camera setup on the iPhone 15 Pro Max
provides the highest quality video available on a smartphone, on par with that of professional video cameras. Creatives can record in ProRes at up to 4K60 frames per second to an external drive using Apple Log encoding on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. This preserves even more detail for color grading after production. The world’s first smartphones to support the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES), a global standard for color workflows, are the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
According to Oakes, “We were able to get the same complex shots with the iPhone 15 Pro Max.” “Everything exists to serve as an extension of a person’s character or vision. The iPhone’s image quality undoubtedly democratizes access.
Jon Carr of Apple advised the production.
Pro Workflow video specialist with credits in Terminator: Dark Fate and Top Gun: Maverick; Jeff Wozniak, producer of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Avatar, and Iron Man 2. “This year, the iPhone 15 Pro Max was supercharged with the ability to record ProRes to an external drive, and Apple Log, our flavor of a format that all of the very high-end digital cameras shoot,” claims Wozniak.
Carr continues, “It’s pretty amazing how you can put this in the hands of a professional director and they don’t have to change anything about the things they always do, or their equipment.”
Using several iPhone 15 Pro Max devices to record video, the group made use of the integration
Tentacle Sync, the Blackmagic Camera app, and the iPhone 15 Pro, demonstrating the full potential of the Apple ecosystem. Tentacle Sync, which connects via Bluetooth, powers timecode and allows all of the equipment on set, including Macs and preview screens, to be in sync with each other during production. During production, Beastgrip accessories such as cages and rigs were also utilized.
With a suitable USB 3 cable, the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s new USB-C connector allows for data transfer rates of up to 10Gbps, which represents a significant improvement. The crew can review and make changes to footage almost instantly when using new workflows like ProRes video recording straight to an external SSD drive. In the post
Editors can further enhance their color grading control and flexibility by utilizing Apple Log’s higher dynamic range.
Scary Fast, which was filmed in Apple Park at night, demonstrated the enhancements in the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s low-light video capabilities. The iPhone 15 Pro Max boasts an even greater high and low light range than earlier models thanks to ProRes Log encoding, which improves dynamic range and provides more versatility for color grading in post-production. “I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw the footage from the iPhone 15 Pro Max,” says CEO Stefan Sonnenfeld of Company 3, who also colored the presentation and has experience with Fast X, The Equalizer 3, and Stranger Things. “The picture quality on
The amazing iPhone 15 Pro Max is available. And the reason I know is that we are using it for this project, and I have seen and done it myself.
The crew was able to utilize the same interface as Blackmagic Design’s award-winning digital film cameras, which provided the same tools used in feature films, television shows, and documentaries, by using the Blackmagic Camera app, which was created exclusively for iOS users. The app, which is currently free to download from the App Store, allows Apple Log encoding on the iPhone 15 Pro Max and adds controls for the digital film camera to the iPhone. “We’ve worked really hard behind the scenes with Blackmagic Design, a fantastic third-party developer, who has made an amazing app that enables us to have a ton of
crew, monitors, and everyone going about things as usual,” says Carr.
In order to capture the moments and highlight the new MacBook Pro, the crew on set used conventional filming methods—including the use of drones—with the iPhone 15 Pro Max. “It’s a very exciting and lively environment, with dollies, cranes, and all the toys a filmmaker could want,” says Oakes. “Everyone is moving and has their job to do.”
“I think what I love about the iPhone is that it enables everybody who uses it to have access to incredible amounts of information, and with a really intuitive operating system, so that whether it’s myself or someone else,” Sonnenfeld says, reflecting on the incredibly versatile and user-friendly nature of the device.Anyone can pick it up and pretty much use it right away, even my 7-year-old.