I watched the event live and was impressed by the cinematography the entire time. Never once did I guess anything was filmed on a phone. What blew my mind even further is that shots that I was 100% sure were CGI, were actually filmed with an iPhone on a drone. Watch the video above to see the quick behind-the-scenes look.
Haters are going to point to the giant crews and expensive lights, but the truth is that cinema-quality video is now in the hands of everyone. You are capable of making almost anything these days with zero budget.
I wonder if that phone had any particular "upgrades" that made it better than one the average consumer would have. Like I know its the same sensor and all, but I remember in the past hearing certain action camera makers would enable stuff like true raw video recording for their "shot on X" promo videos that would never be present in the public units. No idea if true or not but wouldn't surprise me. Regardless, as you mention that was hundreds of thousands of dollars in production gear supporting. The camera is impressive but its also unrealistic to imply this is the sort of video anyone could create with a 15 pro max is also unrealistic.
If the objective was to prove that the camera is less important than camera manufacturers want to advertise... then Apple succeeded. I've always said that the camera is less important than my lighting rig. Yes, we all want better dynamic range, faster lenses, and high frame rates... Yes, these things make it easier to edit or save a shot, or simply grade hard... Yeah, I want the most badass camera, but if my iPhone can make it happen, then I can live with it because I don't have an unlimited budget.
That said, everything is being exported for compressed streaming anyway.
Imagine if they filmed it with DJI pocket 3 😉
To be honest, I'm not very impressed.
Mainly because it's all about knowledge. And they all have the knowledge to produce top-of-the-range videos or films. The talent doesn't come from the machine. I mean it.
The iPhone, the compact camera, the GoPro, the Red... they're all just tools. They add something to the narrative, they justify a point of view.
But when I see the team working on the keynote, the 3rd part of the equipment, the video could just as easily work on something else...
But yes, it's a phone! Amazing! Or not.
To conclude. This is a well-lit, well-scripted, well-managed video with just one constraint... Using an iphone. Easy Peasy in this context. Not?
With good lighting (while at night, none of the key subjects were in low light, thus they could ensure that the camera was at its lowest ISO when exposing for the subject
If you don't need a large amount of depth of field, a decent smartphone camera would give acceptable results.
Consider this, there was an episode of the TV series "House" that was recorded with the Canon 5D MK II, and everyone was fine with it, and most people didn't even notice a difference. (Season 6 final episode of the show since they needed something smaller for many of the scenes, and thus to avoid matching, they used the camera for the entire episode)
With that in mind, consider that at the base ISO, the video output of many modern high end smartphones is better than that camera (so long as you don't need a shallow DOF or other special lens characteristics).
Beyond that,when it comes to the visual quality and looking cinematic,it has more to do with camera movement, lighting, and color grading than it does the actual camera. There are many youtubers using the same cameras that were used to capture many of the high budget Marvel movies, but you would be hard pressed to tell that a youtuber is recording an episode on a RED 8K camera.
I mean that was a very different time when House was filmed. By the standards of that time the 5dMkII was producing elite tier video quality when it was for a show that would be broadcast at 720p (at most, a lot of people probably watched that episode on 480p) over cable.
I have to agree. It’s amazing what you can do with an iPhone and a few million dollars of support equipment (as shown in the video), award-winning videographers and post processing experts. It’s a wonder to me why ABC, NBC, etc. haven’t already sold their existing video equipment and bought iPhones! I’m sure a major league sport event would look astounding when shot on an iphone! They could even use “Portrait Mode” for the post-game interviews!
yeah, that was really cool