AppleInsider Staff
In a behind-the-scenes look at an upcoming "Modern Family" episode shot completely on iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2, co-creator and executive producer Steve Levitan said using the iOS devices didn't dramatically change the production process, and revealed that tomorrow's show is not the first time producers turned to Apple's handset for in-show footage.
According to Levitan, who spoke with BuzzFeed about the special episode, producers wanted to make the episode feel "more authentic" by using iPhones and iPads for the shoot, rather than processing footage from expensive cameras to make it appear as though it came out of Apple's device.
"Shooting on iPhones didn't really change things that much because we shoot on digitally [sic] anyway," Levitan said.
A report last week revealed the upcoming episode would play out on a Mac OS X desktop — created from scratch by the show's graphics team — used by Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen), who is attempting to find her daughter Haley (Sarah Hyland) while stuck in an airport in Chicago. Throughout the show, Dunphy uses FaceTime and iMessage, among other apps, to remotely connect with her family back home in Los Angeles.
Initially, producers imagined each actor would capture footage using their own device, but the idea was ultimately scrapped. Instead, the show's film crew manned the iPhones, keeping shots in frame and steady, while actors grabbed on to the cameraman's arm to create the illusion that the devices were being used handheld.
Levitan said the upcoming episode is not the first to use footage taken directly from an iPhone.
"There was a scene where Manny (Rico Rodriguez) was dressed as a mascot at a basketball game, so rather than recreating a whole basketball game, I quickly shot my son's basketball game on my iPhone," Levitan explained. "Then we filmed Rico against a green screen, and inserted the shot into the episode."
Apple provided "Modern Family" iPhones, iPads and MacBook Pros for the shoot, as well as a Mac Pro for postproduction work, but did not pay for product placement or sponsorship.
BuzzFeed has a short clip of Levitan discussing filming procedures, as well as behind-the-scenes footage showing actors using the iPhone 6 to record the show. The Apple-centric episode, titled "Connection Lost," will debut Wednesday night on ABC.
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19 Comments
I'm willing to bet this is not the only case of this. There's a reason almost every top camera on Flickr is an iPhone.
1) I wonder which shows that have been shot with an iPhone. I think it was when John Oliver was filling in for Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" last Summer than there was a power outage and so they did part of the show on an iPhone, but that's all I can think of, and even that I am not certain. 2) Remember when the iPhone first appeared on TV shows (about a year after in launched due to standard filming and distribution times), and usually the actors were holding them upside down, which I assume was on purpose, for reasons I can't really fathom. 3) So far I haven't read anything that says Apple paid for this sort of novelty that focuses on their products. My guess is it A) made for an interesting and funny idea since families do you "chat" with each other remotely, and B) actually using Apple's equipment will get a lot of free press for the episode which would have been lost if they used Skype and AIM, or simply made up a service like ChatBox or FacePalm, which shows that Apple's mindshare is massive. [quote name="TheWhiteFalcon" url="/t/184932/modern-family-co-creator-details-episode-shot-entirely-with-apple-products#post_2680823"] I'm willing to bet this is not the only case of this. There's a reason almost every top camera on Flickr is an iPhone. [/quote] I'd say because it's a very convenient camera, more so than anything. I'm not saying it's a bad camera — far from it — but in terms of great cameras it's going to be very low on the list if we include professional cameras, hence my usage of convenience. The question I have isn't why is [S]the iPhone[/S] a smartphone camera so high on the list, but why isn't snapshots from Android-based devices higher, even besting iOS-based photos? I think it's because ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????. [SIZE=1][I](Text redacted so this doesn't become an Android-bashing thread)[/I][/SIZE]
Megapixels. It's all about them megapixels.
But...still not serious work, because it isn't a serious show, huh? /s
2) Remember when the iPhone first appeared on TV shows (about a year after in launched due to standard filming and distribution times), and usually the actors were holding them upside down, which I assume was on purpose, for reasons I can't really fathom.
My guess is that the early iPhones had some sort of idiosyncrasy regarding the display, either some sort of frame synchronization issue or possibly some sort of screen polarization that prevented TV cameras at the time from effectively filming the iPhone screen.
If I wear some polarized sunglasses in my car, I find it hard to read certain LCD elements on my dashboard like the clock. Same issue with many iPods, the LCD screen would go black if I viewed them at a certain angle with some polarized glasses. Could be something like that.