Screen grab of Modern Family by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
The latest episode of the popular sitcom Modern Family titled Connection Lost, takes place entirely on Claire Dunphy's (Julie Bowen) MacBook Air display as she's waiting in an airport.
It has all the zany elements of a typical episode, but is filmed entirely on iPhones and iPads and uses various Apple applications like FaceTime, Messages, Safari, Reminders, iTunes and even iPhoto to help push the story along.
While it could easily be dismissed as a massive paid Apple product placement (it isn't), the show's producers really pushed the boundaries of storytelling without compromising the familiar cornerstones of a good Modern Family episode.
A video interview below from Bloomberg features the show's executive producer Steve Levitan, who was inspired to do the episode based on his own experiences with technology and communicating with his own family in a similar way.
Shot from the point of view of Claire looking at her screen, you see what she sees as she uses her notebook to connect with various members of her family (in various simultaneous ways) while checking Facebook, online shopping at Ralph Lauren.com, and even hacking into her daughter's iCloud account to use the Find my iPhone feature.
The effect of seeing the episode from this perspective is highly engaging and makes viewers feel they're really part of the story.
While the MacBook Air and OS X play a supporting part in the episode, there are various cuts and closeups to certain aspects within the desktop that help the pacing of the story. Connection Lost is worth experiencing, preferably on a computer monitor (or better yet, a Mac), it feels like the show is unfolding in realtime. Somehow, I can't imagine the same episode playing as smoothly on a Windows 8.1 notebook.