With less than ten days left until the F1 movie’s release, it has come to light that the makers used Apple technology to record onboard footage of the racing action. A report from Wired confirmed that components for the custom camera were borrowed from an iPhone that could record ProRes footage in LOG format, providing maximum flexibility in post-processing.
Cinema cameras are too bulky to mount on Formula One cars for filming at high speed, and mounting a GoPro wasn’t exactly what F1 cinematographer Claudio Miranda and director Joseph Kosinski were considering. A custom option was the way to move forward, which gave the production team the high-quality cockpit POV they wanted.
Apple’s engineering team extracted the broadcast module from the F1 car that is designed to record lower-resolution footage for live TV. The device, located behind the driver and by the side of the engine intake, was replaced with a camera with borrowed parts from an iPhone. The team had to ensure that the camera replicated the broadcast module and adhered to a weight limit.
The sensor on the module is most likely powered by an A17 Pro chipset and features the 48-megapixel primary camera from an iPhone 15 Pro. The module was built in a way that could withstand shocks, vibrations, and heat at high speeds. Running on an iPhone battery, the camera lens used an ND filter to limit the amount of light entering the lens.
The engineering team ensured the module ran on a custom iOS firmware and recorded videos in ProRes lossless video codec to help filmmakers perform advanced color grading in post. Not only was this feature a huge advantage for the film crew, but also for Apple, since the new firmware helped release two new features on the iPhone 15 Pro.
The F1 movie hits theaters on June 25 (June 27 for North America), and fans could receive a high dose of adrenaline-filled action captured on these custom-made onboard cameras.
The story is about a veteran F1 driver, played by Brad Pitt, who returns to the sport to mentor an up-and-coming driver, played by Damson Idris. Despite the dramatic story, the producer of F1, Jerry Bruckheimer, stated that high emphasis was given to ensure the movie maintained F1 authenticity.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton served as an executive producer whose role was to ensure the film adhered to F1 realism. Bruckheimer revealed one instance while filming at Silverstone when Hamilton asked Pitt to shift the car into the correct gear to simulate actual Grand Prix conditions. Newsweek Sports reported his comments:
“Lewis Hamilton saw a part of it, gave us a critique of how the drivers actually do various things.
“The level of specifics that he gave us, like in Silverstone in Turn 3 you’re in second gear, and he could hear with his ear we [Brad Pitt] were in third gear.
“So it’s that kind of thing that he’s bringing to the movie, and he said… when he finishes a race, especially like Singapore, where it’s very hot, he can barely get out of the car, they lose 10 pounds… and it’s not only him, it’s all of them.
“They’re just completely exhausted [and] we’re going to show what it takes to be an F1 driver.”
He added:
“Everything that he has brought to this movie, I can’t even express our thanks to him and all the folks from F1 who made this all possible.
“But the authenticity that he brings, we just can’t imagine what goes into what a driver does and what the sport brings to an audience.
“Sometimes we don’t like to hear some of the things he says, because it costs us more money to fix things, but we’re all in, we want to make it great, and he’s certainly helping us.”
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