As Apple’s iconic Mac turns 30, the Cupertino-based company has released a video shot by iPhones.
The project was spearheaded by Lee Clow, the ad agency creative director behind the Super Bowl commercial that launched Macintosh in 1984, and Ridley Scott, who directed it. The duo enlisted Scott’s son Jake Scott (pictured below) as the film’s director. Collaborating with his father, Jake assembled 15 crews around the world, each led by a cinematographer.
On the day of the Mac’s anniversary, January 24, 2014, the “1.24.14” film was shot around the world in one day, entirely with iPhones.
Entitled “1.24.14” Film (watch below), the video features fifteen locations on five continents, from sunrise in Melbourne to nightfall in Los Angeles, as the crew documented people interacting with Apple products. In total, they shot over 70 hours of footage — all with the iPhone 5s.
Over the course of the day, they documented dozens of stories – archeologists creating 3D renderings as they uncover the buried secrets of Pompeii, a journalist in Puerto Rico editing video footage on his Mac from the back of a jeep, to kids in Paris making music on an iPad by simply moving their hands through sand.
“There’s a sense of liberation about being able to tell these stories with this device, to explore it and investigate it — to see what the iPhone is capable of, and then to push it and stretch it,” Jake stated of the experience.
After the footage was shot in each location, it was handed over to Angus Wall, a Hollywood editor. Because the footage had to be edited so quickly — over 70 hours shot on 100 iPhones — he employed a team of 21 editors to piece the story together.
In order to direct 15 separate locations filming in a single day, Jake transformed a sound stage in Los Angeles into a command center. He equipped it with an arsenal of Apple products including iMac, Mac Pro, and iPad, along with large projection displays positioned around the room. From there he was able to watch every scene as it was shot, and direct all the action remotely via FaceTime.
“Jake had a beautiful analogy for what he’s doing in this room. All this magic is happening around the world and he’s the conductor. He’s able to touch it and move it — to orchestrate it,” adds Lee Clow, the creative director of the film.
“From beginning to end, every facet of this production was made possible by innovations that trace their lineage back to the original Macintosh in 1984,” Apple says.
