The film F1: The Movie has presented Apple and its streaming arm — Apple TV+ — with an opportunity to enjoy a victory lap. Apple’s CODA became the first movie produced by a streaming service to win an Academy Award for Best Picture in 2022 but F1 is a different game… it’s a blockbuster that debuted to over $155 million in its first week, according to CNBC (it could top $300 million by mid-July). Further, it’s a movie that will make the smartphone industry rethink how phone cameras can be used. Not only has a hit been delivered, Apple has made inroads into a multi-billion dollar sport that has lately caught the attention of the US and big dollars are being poured into it.
Putting things into context
Formula One was not the most popular of sports in the US even a few years ago. A lack of top-tier American drivers, combined with the saturation of other sports, has stopped the sport from ruling minds. But that has been changing for some time. Formula One is now stronger than ever, with a huge number of people attending races.
Racing sports have a long history in the US, where for decades, NASCAR has been on everyone’s mind. Indy 500 is another option that draws massive crowds. Worldwide, however, Formula One dominates the scene. It is a battle of strategy and engineering.
In 2021, hundreds of millions of viewers tuned in worldwide to watch Formula One. Since 2018, viewership has picked up in the US. ESPN drew an average audience of 554,000 fans in its first year of broadcasting and then reported figures of 672,000 and 608,000 through 2019 and 2020. Then came Formula 1: Drive to Survive from Netflix. The lockdown hit made Americans find joy in Formula One. In 2024, the figure was 1,100,000. At the same time, another story was unfolding. In 2017, Liberty Media, a mass media company, acquired Formula One Group. The focus: America.
(L-R) Brad Pitt, Lewis Hamilton and Damson Idris pose at the world premiere of F1: The Movie in Times Square on June 16 in New York City. Picture: Getty Images
Formula One Championship involves a series of races held across the globe. Drivers compete for the World Drivers’ Championship. Also, the World Constructors’ Championship is there, which is about the teams. The teams don’t just sponsor drivers, they manufacture the cars. It’s a complex sport and also a dangerous one because of the rapid speeds involved.
When you have wildly expensive cars with brave drivers in the cockpit, people get excited. Further, the drivers have personal storylines, starting with karting leagues. So Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and others have a huge following.
Enter F1 tech
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been waving the chequered flag for some years. In October 2022, he waved the flag to the race winner, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The film F1 is a tech milestone for Apple. The secret to the film may literally be in your pocket — the iPhone. Apple built a custom camera based on the same sensor found on the iPhone 15 Pro and they shoved it inside real racing cars to shoot the film.
Director Joseph Kosinski, who has also made Top Gun: Maverick, wanted to show something we have never seen before. Forget the broadcast angles, forget the GoPro cameras. He wanted moviegoers to feel the action, the same action drivers feel.
The problem is that you can’t put a heavy camera on any Formula One car, which needs to move at a certain speed. We are talking of real cars competing in real races, outfitted with the special Apple camera. The camera has been shrunk down drastically to be disguised in cars to look as part of the fin. It’s the same shape and weight but inside are the iPhone camera sensors.
Every Formula One car has a broadcast camera on top, which is what you see on TV. It is meant for live transmission. The video quality is not great and the colours are flat. They took the best parts of the iPhone camera and engineered it for Formula One. It can shoot in full 4K, ProRes using Log colour. It can handle heat, vibrations and the G-forces that play havoc. Not just that, Apple had to add weight to the camera to match the original Formula One camera for the FIA rules.
Filming of the movie took place at Grand Prix weekends — with Brad Pitt and Damson Idris both getting behind the wheel for real — and director Joseph Kosinski was keen to seek the advice of those in the sport when it came to ensuring that the high-speed nature of Formula 1 was correctly depicted on screen.
When using an iPhone camera at incredible speeds, some modifications had to be made to ensure it could take on vibrations and heat. The camera surpassed the specs provided by Formula One.
The module ran iOS and the videos were captured in log format with Apple’s ProRes lossless video codec. This kind of footage gives editors granular control to colour grade and match the visuals with the rest of the film.
Without any radio in the module, a custom iPad app was the way forward for the filmmakers to make on-the-fly changes to the camera. When connected via USB-C, they could adjust things like frame rate, exposure gain, shutter angle, and white balance.
Agreed that most Apple customers will not use such high-end features but it’s good to know what you get in the phone can encourage us to capture great shots. Further, films like F1 and 28 Years Later are ensuring Apple has a front seat when it comes to filmmaking.
Apple worked with Formula One engineers and Lewis Hamilton, who is also a producer of F1. The camera module can be attached to any of the cars on the nose, the cockpit, the side pods and other places. You can’t tell the shots that came from the iPhone camera module and what came from an expensive cinema rig. It has worked together seamlessly.
“We actually bought six F2 cars, real F2 race cars and worked with Mercedes AMG, the Formula 1 team and their engineers to build real race cars that could carry our camera equipment, recorders and transmitters for making this film. Every time you see Brad or Damson driving in this movie, they’re driving on their own in one of these real race cars on a real F1 track. So that’s kind of how we approached the making of this film,” Kosinski told Formula 1 website.
There were transmitters that transmitted the picture back and Kosinski — with Claudio Miranda, the cinematographer — sat at the base station, looking at 16 screens.
Pitt, who grew up watching Jackie Stewart, said: “It’s been one of the most extraordinary experiences I’ve had. I think it shows. At the end of the day, if the guys down pit lane say, ‘Job well done’, then we’ve done it.”
Filming of F1 has taken place at real events, like in Abu Dhabi, Mexico City and other Grand Prix stops. The filmmakers would shoot on the tracks during short breaks in the races. Pitt and Idris drove themselves in professional race cars at high speeds.
“To bring something to life that would be authentic to the sport, that would tell a great story as well about the ups and downs of life — F1 hit on all the things,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told Variety. “And then we could bring some things that are uniquely Apple to the movie, like our camera technology. And we plan to have the whole of the company support it as well — our retail operation and everything. So it was something that we could get the entire company around. It feels wonderful to be a part of it.”