In order to illicit real emotion from our cast (who were all non-actors), we set out to create the most natural and comfortable set as possible. This meant learning their real birthday traditions and re-creating them - everything from the flavor of their birthday cake to surrounding them with real friends and family. Instead of picking off shots and making our cast repeat lines which would have felt staged and inauthentic, we embraced a “sandbox” approach of setting up the moment and letting it play out naturally, floating around and finding the most intimate moments as they happened.

Over the years, tens of thousands of people have sent Apple (and personally sent Tim Cook) intimate and inspiring messages, letters and e-mails detailing how Apple's products have saved their lives.

So this year to kickoff Apple’s annual September global event, we wanted to do something radically different - launch with a film that had no script. No actors. No product announcement. Just real people telling their real stories of the moment their life almost ended. Celebrating a birthday they should have never had if not for the life-saving features of their Apple Watch and iPhone.

The film not only portrays how Apple creates amazing technology but how its products can have a lasting, real, positive impact on people’s lives.

Apple has already developed and introduced a number of life-saving features across both iPhone and Apple WATCH, many of which are seen in the film:

• Heart Rate Monitoring (Apple Watch)

• ECG App (Apple Watch)

• Blood Oxygen Monitoring (Apple Watch)

• Fall Detection (Apple Watch)

• Emergency SOS via Satellite (iPhone)

• Car Crash Detection (iPhone + Apple Watch)

• Critical Alerts (iPhone)

• Medical ID (iPhone + Watch)

Additional life-saving features Apple has introduced or improved since the film aired include Mental Health Assessment (iPhone + Apple WATCH), Roadside Assistance via Satellite (iPhone), expanding Emergency SOS via Satellite into Spain + Switzerland and launching the Check In feature. (iPhone)

The film features 7 real people who celebrated another birthday because their Apple Watch or iPhone helped save their life. It begins with each person doing their morning rituals as they receive texts from friends and family wishing them a happy birthday. As they arrive at their respective birthday parties, we learn that they were each involved in a near-death experience, such as Antonio Femiano who got caught in a blizzard and suffered hypothermia before using Emergency SOS on his iPhone to call for help. Or 12 year old Imani Miles, whose Apple Watch helped doctors discover and remove a life-threatening tumor. We then hear from each of them as they share their changed perspective and how much they appreciate being alive. It ends with a supercut of found footage from their iPhones - showing all the life they got to live because their life was saved.

This year's Apple September keynote was viewed live by 27 million people around the world. The event is designed to launch Apple’s newest products.

The brief was to open up the keynote event with a captivating film that showcases Apple's innovation and gets people excited for the product updates. The film needed to inspire the world while demonstrating Apple's philosophy, emphasizing not just what the products are but why they matter.

To find our core cast, we searched through hundreds of stories from around the world on news sites, social media, and even emails to Tim Cook himself. We setup an extensive interview process with over a hundred interviews getting to know people deeper, finding who had a true sense of gratitude for life and searching for a range of stories that hit on the different life saving features Apple has developed. It was through these interviews as people recounted their experiences through laughs, tears, and sincere perspective that we found our cast of seven who all felt unique and earnestly authentic.