Monday’s episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon will be entirely shot on the Samsung Galaxy S10+.
The show’s Twitter account sent out this teaser today. This would be the first time that a broadcast television TV show has been shot entirely on a smartphone. In the past, Jimmy Kimmel Live worked with Google and the Pixel 3, to record Eminem’s performance of “Venom” on the Empire State Building last fall. Which was pretty impressive. Now that performance was shot on the Pixel 3, but not edited on the Pixel 3. Which is an important differentiator.
In the Tweet, Jimmy Fallon did mention that Connor McGregor would be on the show, and possibly be going to a bar with Jimmy Fallon. Now that will be interesting, especially with them using the Galaxy S10+ to shoot that segment of the show. As bars do typically have pretty dim light, and that’s something that smartphones really have trouble with.
Samsung is pretty well-known for its cameras, and the Galaxy S10+ has perhaps its best cameras that it has ever put onto a smartphone. With the telephoto and wide-angle lens included with the regular camera on the backside. Allowing users to get a few different shots all with the same camera. It’ll be interesting to see how the crew at The Tonight Show takes advantage of the cameras on the Galaxy S10+ on Monday night.
Smartphone cameras have gotten really impressive over the last few years, so it’s great to see TV shows like The Tonight Show opting to use a smartphone camera to shoot an entire episode, and leave behind the much larger cameras that take up a lot more space in the studio. Now where the show will be using the Galaxy S10+ only to shoot this episode, that doesn’t mean that it won’t be using any handheld gimbals or tripods to make sure the video stays stable. That will happen. While the Galaxy S10+ does a good job at keeping video stable, it is not perfect, and filming an episode that millions of people are going to watch, stability is a big deal.
Samsung has always spent a ton on marketing and that’s just what is happening this time around with this partnership with The Tonight Show. It’s getting its name out there, so everyone knows that there is a new Galaxy S10 smartphone available for customers to buy. But as a twist, it does also show how good the camera is on the Galaxy S10+. Smartphone OEMs do send their phones to photographers to take shots with their cameras. But by using it on a TV show, it makes it a bit more unique, and also shows off the video quality of the camera. Something that is becoming more and more important.
The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon airs every weekday at 11:35pm ET, and the episode shot on the Galaxy S10+ will be airing on Monday, March 25. So make sure you set your DVR so you don’t miss that episode.