April 29, 2024

How Mythic Quest Used 40 iPhones to Shoot Its Upcoming 'Quarantine' Episode [Video]

Posted May 21, 2020 at 3:34pm by iClarified · 5009 views
Rob McElhenney and Megan Ganz, co-creators of Mythic Quest, share how they used 40 iPhones to shoot the upcoming 'Quarantine' episode, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

McElhenney pitched the idea of doing an episode with the show's characters in quarantine to Apple, who were immediately on board. He requested 40 new iPhones and 20 sets of earbuds to pull it off.

"This was a Monday, and I said, 'If we have them by Friday, I think we could pull this off. Is that possible?'" he recounts. "There was a rep on the call who didn't skip a beat. She said, 'I already have them tracked down. They're in L.A. and I can have them to you by this afternoon.'"

To capture the view seen by Zoom, the actors placed an iPhone in front of the camera on their normal video conferencing device.

To get [footage] through to editorial as fast as possible, because we wanted to get this episode done and out while we were still in quarantine. The way we'd do each scene is they'd take their laptop/desktop cameras that you would see normally for a teleconferencing thing and they'd put the iPhone directly in front of that camera, so I essentially had video village from my house. I could see what every actor's camera is picking up and you could also see the readings for the audio. Mike, the cinematographer, could double check all the settings and make sure that everything was running at the right revolution, frame rate, etc. Then we would run the scene, and the actors would be talking to one another the same way we're talking right now [by phone], through our AirPods.

There's many more details in the extensive interview linked below. Notably, McElhenney doesn't rule out a second quarantine episode if the lockdown continues.

The 'Quarantine' episode will be released tomorrow on Apple TV+.

Check out the trailer below!

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