Even for those of us that don’t yet have the iPhone X, we know about its facial recognition technology – Face ID is a secure and private way to unlock your phone. But imagine to possibilities if your face could unlock all of the locked-up things around you? That is what Apple set out to demonstrate in its iPhone X “Unlock” film. The spot features a female high school student using Face ID for the first time. After she unlocks her phone, a whole world unlocks around her. Anything that was previously locked, she can now open with just a glance throughout her school– lockers, doors, a gymnasium supply closet and even a science lab with test animals inside. After an almost telekinetic spree on her high school, a friend’s text brings her back into reality. She is pulled back into her phone, and again, unlocks it with a look.

There are many ways the effects in Apple’s ‘Unlock’ film could have been executed, but Director Dougal Wilson chose to shoot almost all the effects in camera without motion control. This meant the team of 86 artists at MPC across 3 continents had 3 weeks to composite 37 shots, each with multiple plates and different camera moves. Shots like exploding lockers, sport equipment, desks and sports halls all needed to be derigged. For example, the end shot of cars exploding was made up of 40 different passes that were stitched into a 50-foot techno crane move. The scene of the desks exploding had 22 gas canisters that had to be removed in addition to replacing the floors and ceiling. Beyond combining all these passes, extra elements were shot on green screen and composited into multiple shots. Not to mention the CG frogs and flying paper to add to the chaos.