Connection Lost

"Connection Lost"
Modern Family episode
Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen) communicates with her family over FaceTime
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 16
Directed by	Steven Levitan
Written by	Steven Levitan Megan Ganz
Production code	6ARG12
Original air date	February 25, 2015 (2015-02-25)
Guest appearances
Reid Ewing as Dylan Adam DeVine as Andy
Episode chronology
← Previous "Fight or Flight" Next → "Closet? You'll Love It!"
Modern Family season 6
List of episodes

"Connection Lost" is the sixteenth episode of the sixth season of the American sitcom Modern Family, and the series' 136th episode overall. It originally aired on February 25, 2015. The episode was written by Steven Levitan & Megan Ganz, and directed by Steven Levitan.

In the episode, Claire waits for her flight back home while trying to get in touch with Haley after a fight they had. Not being able to reach her, she asks everyone where she might be and a series of events and revelations lead her to believe that Haley is pregnant with Andy's baby and the two of them ran away to Las Vegas and got married.

"Connection Lost" breaks away from Modern Family's formula by presenting the entire episode through Claire's laptop screen as she uses FaceTime, iMessage and other social networking services to keep in touch with her family. The episode received positive reviews from the critics, with many praising the original concept and humor.

The episode won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation at the 2015 ceremony.

While waiting for her flight at O'Hare airport, Claire (Julie Bowen) attempts to contact Haley (Sarah Hyland) after a fight. She FaceTimes Phil (Ty Burrell), who says that Haley slept over at a friend's house. Meanwhile, Alex (Ariel Winter) sends Claire drafts of her college essay, but Claire ignores them.

Claire FaceTimes Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) to wish him a happy birthday. Knowing Haley was babysitting Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) the previous night, she asks Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell if they know Haley's location, and they reveal she borrowed an old blue suit. Lily tells her that Dylan (Reid Ewing) was talking with Haley the previous night, surprising her since she was unaware that the two of them were still in touch.

Claire views Haley's Facebook page through a fake profile and panics upon seeing that Haley's relationship status is set to "Married". Claire panics, believing Haley has married Dylan. She calls him, which disproves her suspicions. Unable to reach Haley, Claire hacks her iCloud account to track her phone's GPS, much to Alex's disapproval. Using Google Maps, Claire sees that Haley's phone is near a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Claire further panics, having no idea who Haley could have married.

When she learns Andy (Adam DeVine) has taken time off to go to Vegas for a wedding, Claire concludes Haley has secretly married him. A parcel containing the book What to Expect When You're Expecting arrives for Haley at the Dunphy household. Now fearing Haley is pregnant, Claire panics again and opens a slideshow of Haley's childhood pictures, making her emotional. Seeking advice, Claire FaceTimes Jay (Ed O'Neill) and apologizes for eloping when she was Haley's age. Jay reassures her that the situtation might not be a bad thing since it led her to have a loving family with a good husband.

Claire finally receives a call from Haley, who has just woken up in the Dunphy's household; she is neither pregnant nor married. She explains that the suit was for a friend who was getting married; she accidentally left her phone in Andy's car; her Facebook status was a joke about a "Cronut"; and the pregnancy book was for designing clothes for her boss's new fashion range. When Haley questions how her mother accessed her Facebook page and tracked her phone, Claire pretends to lose connection and ends the call before boarding her flight.

"Connection Lost" is presented through Claire's laptop screen as she uses FaceTime, iMessage and other social networking services to keep in touch with her family.^[1] According to Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan, for the sixth season, the writers' first priority was to avoid disappointing the audience and to revitalise the series whenever possible; they were not afraid of experimenting with different forms.^[2] Levitan described communication via digital devices as common at the time, adding that his own family used such technology frequently.^[3] A professed technophile,^[4] he noted that the show had "always embraced" technology.^[3] Levitan developed the concept while simultaneously using his laptop to FaceTime his daughter, browse websites, and check his email. She later sent him the short film Noah (2013),^[4][5] which takes place on the computer screen of a teenage boy who experiences a breakup through message apps.^[6][7] The film provided him with the "proof of concept" that such an approach could maintain an audience's attention and would permit a complicated narrative.^[8]

Levitan co-wrote "Connection Lost" alongside Megan Ganz.^[8] The writing team needed a storyline that would involve the main cast and a reason for the episode to be told on a screen.^[9] Levitan "half expected it to fail" since they struggled to find a sustainable narrative.^[10] The episode was ultimately set with Claire at the airport just before her flight to create a sense of urgency and opportunities for humor.^[9] Ganz stated that the new format allowed for different comedy styles.^[8] Claire's laptop includes many inside jokes.^[11] The episode includes several easter eggs, including Croctopus 4, a reference to a fictional film that appears in the season two episode "Our Children, Ourselves".^[3][12] To provide an authentic atmosphere, everything, including articles to emails, was created from scratch. For Alex's college essay, Ganz wrote a "satire version" that "tr[ies] to say the least amount of information in the most amount of words".^[9] "Connection Lost" took some artistic liberties. Claire calls several people simultaneously on FaceTime and accesses Google Street View using Apple Maps; both features were non-existent.^[13] Editor Tony Orcena and motion graphics producer John Brown were involved earlier than usual during pre-production due to the different format. They needed to arrange everything that would happen on the laptop based on the editing that would occur later. Orcena stated: "You're on that desktop for seven straight minutes without a single cut, so a lot of the challenge was to do that without it being jarring, so what you do in the first seconds has to make sense seven minutes later."^[14]

Levitan contacted Noah creators Patrick Cederberg and Walter Woodman for assistance, but they were unavailable due to their involvement on another project. The producers decided to use Apple products due to their familiarity and recognizability to audiences.^[13] Apple, a company with which Modern Family had maintained a relationship,^[4] provided the show with iPhones, iPads, MacBook Pros, and a 12-core Mac Pro after the producers notified the company of their plans.^[15] The show's team did not receive payment for their use of the products, with Levitan saying: "There's no product placement or anything. This just came from life, and it made sense."^[4] Prior to filming, extensive run-throughs were conducted with crew members to develop a proof of concept. During this period, they would also troubleshoot and eliminate ways of capturing the ceiling or air as "dead time".^[16]

"Connection Lost" was filmed in late 2014,^[1] with Levitan directing; he described it as "easily the most labor-intensive" episode to produce for Modern Family.^[4] To allow sufficient time for post-production, Levitan and his crew had to accelerate their filming schedule.^[9] The team shot 95 percent of the episode within two days.^[4] The producers intended to shoot the episode as a screen recording on the Mac, but the quality was insufficient when it was displayed on a high-definition TV.^[13] Instead, it was filmed with iPhone 6s, iPads, and MacBook Pros, because the creators believed it looked more realistic than recording and later modifying higher-quality footage.^[4] Although FaceTime calls use the front cameras, producers opted to film with the iPhone's superior back cameras.^[13] The episode was shot in the Advanced Video Coding video compression standard.^[1]

During filming, the actors were supposed to hold the recording devices by themselves. However, to avoid recording the ceiling and other surrounding objects, the camera operators held the devices while the actors positioned their hands beside the camera operators', creating the appearance of a selfie.^[3] Claire's computer displays three separate calls occasionally; to give the impression that the characters were all communicating on FaceTime, those scenes were filmed all at once, with up to three sets operating simultaneously.^[7] Bowen filmed the episode alone in a curtained-off section of the sound stage against a green screen.^[1][17] As she could not see the other actors, she used monitors and tape to inform her eye line.^[18] An iPhone positioned atop the Mac's camera was used to record shots of Bowen facing the computer. This resulted in more even eye line for Bowen as well as clearer footage.^[13] Bowen had to be careful when moving her eyes due to her close proximity to the camera. She used an earpiece to hear the other actors.^[17]

The post-production process took four months, quadruple its usual length.^[17] The team used the applications Media Composer and Adobe After Effects. The footage was uploaded directly into Media Composer. However, when put into After Effects, the compression worked badly. Thus, the crew decided to use Media Composer to encode the video into the Apple ProRes compression format, which they would then import into After Effects. The standard color grading procedure was eschewed, and only greenscreen shots of Bowen were graded.^[1] Initially, Brown combined the footage into a preliminary mock-up of Claire's computer screen, assuming that the episode could then be made using screen capture software. However, the image would become blurry when they focused on specific parts. Consequently, Brown had to reproduce and animate the whole Mac interface at a resolution of up to four times the standard one.^[5]

To simulate a computer screen with up to nine open windows, editors and motion graphics producers had to combine the footage with visual effects;^[3] they also needed to recreate the interface of the operating system OS X Yosemite.^[4] Brown and Orcena knew of the visual techniques required from working on Google campaigns, but employing them in a 22-minute television episode could become "very cumbersome and time-consuming", as well as chaotic.^[17] Orcena had to use the Mac Pro to edit as the bins on his Avid computer were so large that they broke the autosave feature.^[15] Each act needed to look as though it were one continuous shot with no cuts. The team was frequently cutting and editing, but they had to come up with creative methods to hide it. One way they accomplished this was simulating connection issues, which allowed them to switch between takes.^[14] Other methods included moving the camera and morphing from one shot into another.^[1] To make sure the episode remained up-to-date, the crew had to keep up with modifications to Yosemite, which Brown said was "frustrating".^[19]

In the United States, "Connection Lost" aired on February 25, 2015.^[12] In its original American broadcast, the episode was watched by 9.32 million viewers and received a 3.4 rating among adults aged 18–49. It placed second in its time slot, behind Empire.^[20] After factoring in seven-day DVR viewership, the episode gained 5 million viewers and 2.1 rating points, for a total of 14.3 million viewers and a 5.5 rating in the 18–49 demographic.^[21]

"Connection Lost" received positive reviews from television critics, with many praising the episode's originality, writing and humor even though some of them stated that it looked like an advertisement for Apple.^[5] The Motion Picture Association described it as "one of the most discussed comedy episodes of 2015".^[14]

Sandra Gonzalez of Mashable praised the episode's concept. "...In addition to the pure fun of the laptop-only framing device, it was used incredibly cleverly". Gonzalez also praised the writing by stating "Bonus points to the writers for the great attention to detail. Almost everything about Claire's digital world seemed fleshed out, down to the previous communications with her children".^[22]

Gwen Ihnat of The A.V. Club awarded the episode a B, and labelled the episode as "A gimmicky but successful storytelling experiment" and "one of the most entertaining episodes in recent memory". Ihnat closed her review by stating "the technology did pull all of Modern Family together this episode, with primarily successful results".^[23]

Ashley Bissette Sumerel of TV Fanatic rated the episode with 4.8/5 saying that it was one of the most brilliant episodes we had seen in a while. "This week's Modern Family tries something very experimental, and the results are fantastic!. [...] Overall, "Connection Lost" is another hilarious episode of Modern Family, but it's also very well done".^[24]

Anick Jesdanun of The Detroit News gave a positive review to the episode saying that "The digital medium offered a fresh, clever way of storytelling — with jokes and plot twists not possible with the documentary-style approach that "Modern Family" typically uses". Jesdanun closed their review by claiming "The graphics were so realistic that I reached for my mouse once or twice to try to move a window — before remembering I was watching TV on my computer. I caught a lot more on repeat viewings".^[25]

Bryan Bishop of The Verge also gave a positive review to the episode saying that it worked even if it felt like a half-hour Apple commercial. "...[the episode] takes place entirely on the screen of a character’s laptop — and while it’s a fun new riff on the sitcom's successful formula, it’s also one of the most glowing love letters to the Mac you'll see this side of an Apple keynote."^[5]

Despite the positive reviews, Lisa Fernandes of Next Projection rated the episode with 6.5/10 saying that the episode could have been a lot worse but it could have been a lot better. "Bereft of the hope of actually telling interesting stories, Modern Family’s resorted to a gimmick episode- an entire story told via webcams, cell phones, mini-cams, Ipad homepages and other Netbook devices. What’s supposed to be a quirky and fun frankly feels strange and unwieldy."^[26]

According to Vulture, "Connection Lost" is often considered Modern Family's best episode.^[16] It has been ranked among the show's best episodes by Screen Rant (1st),^[27] Rolling Stone Brasil (1st),^[28] Entertainment Weekly (2nd),^[29] The Mary Sue (9th),^[30] the Chicago Sun-Times (10th),^[31] and The Indian Express (10th).^[32]

At the 67th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, "Connection Lost" won Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation,^[33] marking Modern Family's third win—after "En Garde" and "Dude Ranch"—and sixth nomination in the category.^[34] It also received the Cinema Audio Society Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series – Half Hour and was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Episodic Comedy.^[35][36]

• Afterbuzz's discussion about "Connection Lost" on YouTube
• "Connection Lost" at IMDb
• "Connection Lost" at ABC.com