Thanks to producer Steve Levitan's love for gadgets, this week's "Modern Family" season 6's "Connection Lost" episode will be shown entirely through a desktop screen. The show will utilize Facetime to tell the story.
"I have two daughters at college, and we do a lot of FaceTiming," Levitan told ABC about how he came up with the idea.
"I had emails open, some websites...then my daughter showed up [on FaceTime]. I could not only see her, but I could see me, and there was something going on behind me, my wife or somebody," he added. "I realized on that screen, you could tell so much about my life."
That's exactly what he wants to do with next Wednesday's episode.
In this "Modern Family" season 6 episode, Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen) will have a fight with her daughter Hayley (Sarah Hyland). However, she can't talk to her face to face because she's in the airport.
She then proceeds to call her family in order to look for her. In doing so, we see their life through their iPhones or Mac screens, reflecting the way society works today. The sitcom is called "Modern Family," after all.
According to The Verge, this episode will be utilizing the sub-genre called "screen capture filmmaking." This has been used in Google ads as well as in a short film called "Noah."
Universal is also planning to make a full length horror film using the sub-genre. "Unfriended" will be released this April.
For this "Modern Family" season 6 episode, Levitan and the crew asked help from John Brown, a motion graphics artist.
Brown's hard work didn't go unnoticed. (He had to recreate and reanimate the entire Mac interface for "Modern Family."
The Verge called Brown's work "impressive" even though the version shown wasn't the final episode yet.
Watch the new "Modern Family" season 6 episode on Wednesday, Feb. 25 on ABC.
