Does anyone know who the cinematographer was for the Apple keynote last week? Shot on iPhone 18 Pro, but this year it looked noticeably better. Much better color and contrast lighting. Thoughts on the production?

22:02know who the cinematographer was for the apple keynote last week shot an iphone 18 pro but this year it looked noticeably better much better color and contrast lighting thoughts on the production Bill Davis. Well, I don't know who shot it. I know that Apple has an entire team that has been working on these for a long time. And they're just continuing to improve.

22:24I think this is iteration. It's the same thing that we did here at Office Hours. You know, you start out and you're a little shaky. And the first time you do it, you don't know everything you need to know. Second time you get better. The third time you get even better. And I think they're iterating their keynotes using Apple technology to really push it to the limits.

22:43And certainly they have access to every engineering mind possible who understands the devices perfectly. And they have access to any expertise they need to make sure that the lighting and everything else. So they got top-notch gaffers and grips and everybody. And they plot this also in terms of what's going to look best on this sensor. And plus, on top of all of that, they have absolute control over their location because the Apple headquarters is something that they know perfectly.

23:13so they know exactly what lighting is installed. And if they need to rip it out and put something else in for the shot, they can do that. So I think most times you see something on screen and it looks great. It is because people who understand the nuances of capturing that took the time to understand everything and make those incremental little decisions that keep moving it from better,

23:36better, better to as close to exactly right as we can. And then whatever image sensor you put at that moment after you've done all that, it's going to look amazingly good. David Brady. The quick Google foo search that I did shows that Apple keeps that stuff tight to vest. The only thing that I found was a reference to the 2023 keynote and a guy named Brian Oaks served as cinematographer on an iPhone 15.

24:05Courtney. Yeah, they keep all that. And it's also multiple teams because they're shooting and they shot in a variety of 26 different locations and they shot in London and New York and San Francisco, of course, for all the stand-ups. But all the location shots as well, the pieces that tie everything together, they supposedly use the iPhone 18 and that's what they want you to focus on.

24:28That's why they have a tight list. They never publish the list of people who were the cinematographers or the crew at all on any of those things because they want you to focus on the hardware itself and its capabilities rather than, you know, well, you know, I got my iPhone 18 and it doesn't look like Zygmunt shot it, you know. So it's like they want you to think that, hey, the phone's doing all the work, not the talent of a very skilled lighting cinematographer.

24:57So they keep that closely held. And they also have in-house media people that produce a lot of that stuff, too. So we don't know which people the in-house stuff people did and which outside people lit and produced those wonderful images. And a Mac Observer article from earlier this week cites a social post that Apple made saying that filming took 38 days over 20 locations to get all of the individual pieces,

25:27including all of those uh that two minute bit at the open where they did all of all of the fake movie intros the james stuff it's it's one of those things where apple wants you to think of what's possible is everybody going to get a whole crew with gaffers and lighting and multiple locations and do production at that level on an iphone no but the message is to

25:53everybody who's a creator, they're saying you have something in your pocket that could get to that level. It's an aspirational message, but yeah, it is impressive to see how things look. The other thing is they've had more time to play with, okay, when we shoot ProRes RAW out of an iPhone, how do we grade it? How do we cut it together? What are the places where things are going to

26:20break up. They've just had more time to iterate internally. So of course, you know, with time, with the same level of tool, because really the 17 to the 18 camera, other than that aperture, there's not a huge departure in terms of that image sensor. They've just had more time with it. So it's going to look better. Next question. Okay. This question is coming in from Paul