Adjacent to Greatness: On the “Steve Jobs” set, where 2015 was like 1984

A few weeks after visiting the "Steve Jobs" production office, I got to watch some actual filming. The Mac was introduced at Flint Center in Cupertino in 1984. In the movie, Flint Center got to play itself. The place was nicely dressed up for the occasion.

Lots of people were taking pictures of the 1984 banners with their iPhones

The crew needed 2500 people to come sit in the auditorium for hours, and they weren't sure how many would show up. But it turned out that thousands of people stood in long lines to get in, and some had to be turned away because there was no room, just like at the original event.

Thousands of extras were recruited to be the audience in Flint Center

There were actual non-actor security guards at the doors, but they let me in without an argument - much different security than an actual Apple event would have. There were actors dressed in '80s clothes and wearing fake old-fashioned Apple employee badges. I met the guy playing Mac software engineer Steve Capps, who wasn't wearing what Capps would wear.

Nerd on left, actor on right.

This movie had a code name.

I ran into Danny Boyle, the director, who I talked to on my first visit. He was very busy, but took a few minutes to chat. He remembered my story about how I was recruited by Steve at NeXT. He said he told Michael Fassbender that story as an example of how Steve never gave up and ended up getting something from me anyway.

An actor I saw backstage asked me if I was Andy Hertzfeld.

As filming began, they shot this scene from act 1 many times, with the actors trying different things each time. I was watching on a giant monitor with some of the crew.

This didn't exactly happen in real life

This was weird. It felt like I was watching actors play people I know in real life - which is exactly what was happening.

Here's a super-blurry photo taken while filming an outdoor scene of Jobs and Woz as they walked and talked, Sorkin style, outside Flint Center under the giant trees.