Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple's Oscar Ad Shot Entirely on an iPad

I never understood why, when given the choice, people shoot with iPads when the iPhone's video quality is better. Like that documentary filmmaker Apple featured on their site as part of the Your Verse campaign.
 
Last edited:
Traverse said:
I didn't even know the Oscars were on tonight. Show's how out of touch with the world I am. :/
Click to expand...

I really think that most people don't know or care about the Oscars anymore. So you are probably more in touch with the world than you think.
 
panther quest said:
I don't know, everyone doesn't watch the Oscars but a lot do. (not me though)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/02/28/one-billion :)
Click to expand...

That article linked basically says that the worldwide viewer number is made up. One billion viewers is fake.

It also says about 15% of Americans watch it. Compare that to the recent Super Bowl, which had more than triple that number.

I could be wrong about this, but I think that the Oscars are watched mostly by Hollywood types and baby boomers. If anything interesting happens, everyone else will find out later and maybe watch clips of it.

Maybe shooting an ad with an iPad could make a few more people interested in it.
 
Piggie said:
I really really REALLY hope this is done in a genuine way, without thousands of dollars of extra hardware to improve what a typical user can obtain.


Whilst when they do that, it's technically still being shot on an iPad or an iPhone or whatever, I don't really feel it's in the True Spirit of the thing.

If you want to say "Shot only with an iPad or an iPhone" Then that's all the hardware that should be used.

No pro lighting rigs, no steady cams, no stick on lens's. Nothing, just the device. At the VERY most perhaps a tripod, and just edit the footage to look nice.

That would be in the spirit of the thing as I say, and I hop this is what they have done this time.
Click to expand...

Good post. If by geniune, you mean the average person who goes out an buys an iPad can do this, no. The cost and equipment involved in this , heck the cost of the iPad is almost free. It's just marketing. You just need your own production crew and you can produce some amazing footage from any device ;)

----------
honglong1976 said:
and using Bose headphones :)
Click to expand...

I know , that made me laugh. I suspect beats did not fit the demographic of the people involved ;)
 
vertical smile said:
That article linked basically says that the worldwide viewer number is made up. One billion viewers is fake.

It also says about 15% of Americans watch it. Compare that to the recent Super Bowl, which had more than triple that number.

I could be wrong about this, but I think that the Oscars are watched mostly by Hollywood types and baby boomers. If anything interesting happens, everyone else will find out later and maybe watch clips of it.

Maybe shooting an ad with an iPad could make a few more people interested in it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think you misunderstood the intention of both my posts.
 
casperes1996 said:
I disagree, and here's why.
I don't want a big phone. I think the 6 is slightly too big actually. It's fine enough in form factor, but just a tad too big. A 6+ would be horrendous. However, a phone that is a phone and a tablet that is a tablet. That combination is excellent. I am not the only one.
Click to expand...

No, you're not the only one, but you are becoming a minority.

Since Samsung created the phablet market, people quickly realized that there is no reason to buy - and carry around - TWO devices for the SAME purposes. Apple used the philosophy that you phrased above as their sales pitch for quite a long time simply because they did not have a phablet in their portfolio. Now they do, and strangely enough, nobody is saying "we think 3.5" is the perfect size for a phone" in an Apple keynote anymore. They actually have a hard time explaining why anyone who owns an iPhone 6+ should buy an iPad Mini - a device of almost the same size, but without phone features. I guess the iPod Touch market also has become a bit of a problem for them. And with Ultrabooks like the MacBook Air - a device that can actually be used for writing - there really is a question why anyone would need a tablet in addition to a notebook and a phablet.

All of that leads back to square one when those gadgets hit the market, and after all those years I still have not found any real use for them except for the use that they had back then: eBook readers, comic book readers, consoles for touch-optimized games (like board game adaptations) or mobile surf boards (as Jobs said himself, usually on the toilet or in the bed). And that's about it. And let's face it, most of the time a phablet is big enough for any of these use cases.

Back to the original topic:

I wonder if anyone in the last 20 years has ever said "this screenplay was entirely written with Microsoft Word". Or Scrivener. Or Montage. Or Final Draft. For some reason, this might be an interesting niche knowledge, but everybody knows that the choice of the tool usually doesn't make the end result any better.
 
There is a reason they say "SHOT on ipad" and not edited.
Even though they show some things being edited i would love to know how they get all the what has to be GB's of data from all the different ipads on 1 ipad and then edit it into a film.

That's both close to impossible just to get all the files on 1 ipad not to mention edit them into anything remotely useable.
And how do you export that then? icloud....

You'd still need a good editing rig.
At that point i'd rather use a good camera
Sure ipads are great when you have perfect lighting but I dare you to take one into a dimly lit nightclub and get a shot as good as my canon 5d III :p
 
The iPad (or iPhone) is good in GREAT lighting. It not so great or poor lighting, it is TERRIBLE.
 
This is just ********. Apple is trying to convince us media students would use an Ipad in a media production. Thats just not the truth.

Its true you can film stuff with the iPad, but the context it is placed here, with big crew, expensive equipment etc is just wrong.

The more right way would be a single person, lets say a journalist, witnessing something occur, and then not having his camera ready, he captures it with his iPhone or IPad, does a quick edit and is able to send it directly to his office to put out on the net. That would be a realistic approach.

Not mounting the iPad to a crane, hooking it up to external microphones and stuff. Any person working like that surely has a proper camera.
 
The comments about the extra equipment are just cheap shots. The point is to show the quality of the camera, which is suitable for school projects.
 
jayducharme said:
Not only that, the iPhone is selling fine; the iPad, not so much.
Click to expand...

Wrong.

The iPhone has ridiculously high sales (74 million in Q1 2015). The iPad still sells amazingly well (21 million in Q1 2015).

Selling 21 million of something in a 3 month period, and that ALSO being the MOST of any competitor is 'not so much'? Yes, sales have gone down a bit (26 million to 21 million), but it's only 'not so much' if you're biased against Apple.


http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/0...usly-high-iphone-sales-18-drop-in-ipad-sales/

----------
lisster said:
There is a reason they say "SHOT on ipad" and not edited.
Even though they show some things being edited i would love to know how they get all the what has to be GB's of data from all the different ipads on 1 ipad and then edit it into a film.
Click to expand...

It's not ONE film - it's multiple.

What I got from the commercial was that each student had to create a movie on an iPad. So, each student had their own / was given an iPad to create their movie - all shooting and editing for each short film were done on individual iPads without sharing.

Also, it's not that hard to move films between iPads. Simply connect each iPad to iTunes on the same computer, and drag and drop.
 
casperes1996 said:
Last Apple ad had me so worried. It didn't feel right. This... This was brilliant! **** I love it! It's so Apple, so classic Apple. It's art, it's poetry, it's beauty, it's Apple .
Whoever got the idea for this, give yourself a shiny.
Click to expand...

Oh yuck.
 
coolfactor said:
What timezone are you in?

----------



Depends on the channel. There are some very good ad-free channels, but they are rare. Some channels have reasonable commercial breaks, and some go insane. I've given up watching regular TV entirely. Netflix only for me now.
Click to expand...

How are the ad-free channels funded?
 
dannyyankou said:
The comments about the extra equipment are just cheap shots. The point is to show the quality of the camera, which is suitable for school projects.
Click to expand...

I don't think they're necessarily cheap shots. The quality of the camera is ok. However anyone that is likely using any of that production gear would surely rather use a camera that is better suited for such a situation.


bbeagle said:
Also, it's not that hard to move films between iPads. Simply connect each iPad to iTunes on the same computer, and drag and drop.
Click to expand...

At that point, wouldn't it be easier to just edit on the computer?
 
Crosscreek said:
I can do that to with thousands of dollars in equipment to go with my Air 2 and a professional audio and lighting crew.
Click to expand...

Actually, it was done by students at a filmmaking high school. Admittedly, they might be more cutting edge than some professionals. :)

The ad is a showcase not just for iPad Air 2, but for the apps and gear available for it. So yes, by the time you have a dozen iPad Airs, some dedicated to script writing, others to filming, editing or sound recording and mixing, you have a lot invested in just iPads. Add to that the booms, stands, dollies, directors' chairs, TV monitors, and other stuff clearly visible in the ad and you have a significant investment.

That said, the whole thing probably cost a lot less than the zillion dollar budgets a one minute spot on Oscars usually costs.
 
Piggie said:
Yes, and it's wrong no matter who does it.

I think these people are just treating customers as stupid, and I find it insulting.

Let's be honest, if someone gave you, as an individual a challenge project, and they said, ok, for today we are all going to go out and shoot the video with the iPhones I'm handing you.

I think we all would know what the intention was, if not specifically stated. It would be, using this hardware go take some footage.

Using the hardware, PLUS an additional $50,000 of hardware, whilst not explicitly banned by the rules, would not be in the spirit of the task.

It's stupid, when they do this, as people DO see thru it. It is always a negative when we see how they cheated, and it would be so much more impressive if they just used the bare device as they imply.

And this goes for any company.
Click to expand...

Of course you don't like it. But I personally think that there's a huge difference between Nokia (RIP) actually lying and Apple clearly showing how the iPad was used with several tripods, microphones etc. . I'm sure you won't agree, but really that's irrelevant.
 
dec. said:
Of course you don't like it. But I personally think that there's a huge difference between Nokia (RIP) actually lying and Apple clearly showing how the iPad was used with several tripods, microphones etc. . I'm sure you won't agree, but really that's irrelevant.
Click to expand...

I think we all know when something is not quite in the spirit of the task.

One could, for example say, all we are demonstrating here, technically is the quality of the image sensor and lens on the iPad or iPhone. Nothing else matters.

So we strip the Lens and Sensor out of the device, mount it to the front of an F1 car, a Rocket, a Stunt Plane, The fit additional lens over the front of it, fit it with a waterproof housing for some amazing underwater shots.
All these are of course done by professionals with tens of thousands of $ of additional equipment.

And yes, TECHNICALLY you are showing footage that was recorded thru the iPad/iPhone lens onto it's Sensor, and anyone else, with access to the extra equipment could do the same.

But it's not really in the spirit of the task is it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back