While the Marvel Cinematic Universe continually wows us it forward-thinking tech applications, not all of the ideas are grounded in futuristic science-fiction.
With The Avengers: Infinity War season in full swing, we’ve learned that the original heads-up display for Iron Man was based upon the then-new Apple iPhone.
The visual effects technicians who worked on the first Iron Man movie have revealed how Apple’s nascent touchscreen handset formed the thinking behind Tony Stark’s superhero super tech.
Speaking to vfxblog, Kent Seki, visualisation/HUD effects supervisor from Pixel Liberation Front, who worked on the movie, said the iPhone had deeply influenced director Jon Favreau’s thinking.
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He said: “There were many rules and driving philosophies we established along the way that led us to the final product. I remember in an early discussion in post-production with Jon Favreau. He pulled out his iPhone, which was a new thing at the time. He said, ‘I don’t want to tell you a specific graphic to make for the HUD, but I want it to feel intuitive like my iPhone.”
The fascinating blog post also features comments from Dan Rauch, who speaks of how the ‘does what it should do’ interface had influenced Favreau’s thinking heading into Iron Man.
He said: “The iPhone had just come out like literally a week or two before the meeting with Jon – and I got an iPhone and Favreau had gotten an iPhone. When I was down there we kind of geeked out on our iPhones, and we were talking about what we liked about the iPhone because he was really inspired by it. He was like, ‘What I love about this thing is it just kind of does what it should do, and it kind of does what I want it to do and it’s very intuitive and it’s very simple.’
“We opened it up and I was looking at the transitions in an iPhone. I’m like, ‘These transitions are so simple and they’re just like zooming transitions, or wipe transitions. There’s nothing fancy about this phone, but what’s fancy about this phone is that it works and it works really well.’”
What other modern tech do you think has influenced the movies? Drop us a line @Trustedreviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
