February 25 Modern Family episode shot on iPhone and iPad, takes place on a MacBook screen

Modern Family FaceTime MacBook

Re/code is reporting that an upcoming episode of ABC’s popular television sitcom Modern Family was shot entirely on iPhone and iPad cameras and will play out entirely on a MacBook screen, showing exchanges between characters who use FaceTime to communicate among themselves.

The forthcoming episode, titled “Connection Lost,” was shot entirely on an iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 and is scheduled to air at 9pm next Wednesday, February 25, on ABC.

The plot involves Claire Dunphy using email, FaceTime, Facebook and other tools to locate her eldest child after getting stuck in an airport

Apple furnished iPhones for the episode, but did not pay for product placement, said Steven Levitan, the show’s creator and executive producer

Everything displayed on the screen had to be mocked up in order for the footage to look realistic and readable on TV sets.

The production teams worked for months to “create a replica” of OS X Yosemite “painstakingly updated with every revision to the software”.

“We got to populate extra jokes that you won’t catch on in first viewing,” said Megan Ganz, Modern Family’s co-executive producer and writer.

Modern Family back in 2010 aired an episode in which Phil Dunphy is eagerly awaiting the original iPad’s introduction.

Levitate knew the device was coming out so he reached out to Apple.

“One day, a couple of months before it came out, a guy came down with the iPad,” he recalled. “Outside of captivity at Apple, we were among the first people in the country to ever touch it.”

Source: Re/code