Apple’s “Scary Fast” Event Was Shot on iPhone

In a surprising break from tradition, Apple held a prime-time hardware event the night before Halloween. The devices that were unveiled were nothing new and amounted to little more than a spec bump.

New M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max processors were added to the iMac and MacBook Pro lines, and that is all great news for Apple fans. However, there was one more thing that Apple saved until the credits at the end of the show. The entire event was shot on an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

From Concept to Creation

It wasn’t easy, but Apple has the receipts. They created a behind-the-scenes video that outlined everything that was required to make this event a reality.

All of the presenters, locations, and drone footage were actually shot with an iPhone, and nobody had any idea Apple had done this until the last line of the credits at the end of the show.

Curious as to how it was done? You can watch the behind-the-scenes video below.

The Internet Reacts

However, as you may expect, the internet was quick to point out that none of this would have been possible without the thousands of dollars Apple invested in lighting, mounts, sets, rigging, and more.

The iPhone, they said, is not the star of the show here because none of this would have been possible without the sheer scale of a no-expense spared production and a Hollywood film crew.

The Bigger Picture

This is true. The average person is not going to shoot a professional video production with just an iPhone and get incredible results.

However, if Apple had used a RED or an ARRI camera, they would still have needed the lighting, drones, sets, dollies, stabilizers, and everything else. The fact that the iPhone 15 Pro Max can act as a stand-in for a professional camera is the real feat that is worthy of recognition here.

Apple was also keen to point out that they took advantage of many of the new technologies available to the iPhone 15 Pro. They didn’t use the iPhone camera app, but they did use the Blackmagic camera app, an app that is freely available to anyone on the App Store.

The video team recorded footage directly to external SSD drives thanks to the new high-speed USB-C port on the iPhone 15 Pro. They also recorded video in the new Apple ProRes Log video format and edited it on a Mac.

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction?

This event was an interesting experiment for Apple. They probably won’t tell us if the evening time slot attracted more live viewers, but I’m sure that was the intention. The 10 a.m. PST events that they usually hold are right in the middle of the work day for most Americans.

Then, there is the option to actually shoot an event on an iPhone. It’s hard to imagine that they won’t do more of that in the future. It’s an ideal way to showcase some of the potential that the iPhone cameras have.

People will believe what they want to believe, but I don’t think for a minute that Apple tried to pull a fast one here. The behind-the-scenes video they released clearly shows that the iPhone was just part of the story here. They did not try to hide the additional equipment they used, and more often than not, the opposite was true.