Favorite Sitcom Filming Styles.

I wasn't sure how to word the title, but how do you like sitcoms to be filmed?:


Videotape Inside, film for outdoor scenes

Video Tape indoor and outdoor scenes

Everything on film



I like the inside bits on videotape and outdoor bits on film, as that's how most of the sitcoms i watch are.

 

Would you consider a show like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "Arrested Development" a sitcom?

If so, film, three-camera, and no laugh track. Single camera laugh track shows are the worst. Never could enjoy "Seinfeld" or anything else like that.

To paraphrase Woody Allen, "Does this thing have booing?"

Jeff

 

Comparing shows like "I Love Lucy" (from the '50's) - shot on film then "All In The Family" (from the '70's) - shot on videotape its a no-brainer. IMHO film will always look better.
Laugh tracks are a whole seperate animal.

 

The videotape/film hybrid shows (e.g. the supremely boring British sitcom To the Manor Born) annoy me.

 

I suppose my preference is technical. I like that old film shows can be upgraded to HD video presentations, whereas old video is stuck. I also like the look of film, but I've enjoyed shows no matter the format.

 

I would've added HD!

Speaking as a guy who's worked on sitcoms shot single-camera, multi-camera, a combination of single- and multi-camera, 16mm film, 35mm film, 3-perf 35mm, standard-def video, and HD video, my personal preference is for sitcoms that are funny.

There's a terrific Python bit where they're on an indoor set, shot on videotape, then one character (I think Graham Chapman) walks outside and he's now on film. He walks back and forth and says, "by jove! I think they're on film out there" (pointing to the door that leads to the outside). Hilarious inside bit.

Me personally, I think it calls attention to itself because people notice it. To me, everything between outdoors and indoors should be as seamless and invisible as possible. Everything is supposed to tell the story and make the audience laugh, then get the hell out of the way.

 

I just prefer ourdoor on 16 or 35mm as my favorite sitcom "Last of the Summer Wine" was like that for their golden years, and Series 13, which was shot completely on Videotape doesn't look right, neither does series 14 to 25 which were all completely on 35mm film untill they went HD.

Do you know the name of the python bit? as that's something Spike Milligan would of done (probably did it before python maybe, as python copied a lot off spike).

 

Video tape all. Filmed sitcoms just look weird to me.

 

Naaa, here in America (the country that invented the sitcom), they generally shot everything indoors and faked the outdoors, all on tape. It looks pretty horrible, but I think it's better in a way than shifting the media from one format to another. Everything changed ten years ago with HD -- that was a massive paradigm shift.

My memory is that it's Graham Chapman, and it was from the last season (without John Cleese). But we're talking more than 40 years ago. The BBC had always done 16mm exteriors with standard-def 625 videotape interiors, through the end of the 1990s/early 2000s. But once HD came in, they just shot 100% of it in HD.

I think film sitcoms can look good, and there are a handful that still hold up very well today as classics. The advantage of shooting on film is that the picture quality will still look great years from now, unlike the shows doomed to be on 4x3 standard-def video forever.

 

I selected film just because I like the look of film. However, Vidiot is correct: the best preference is a sitcom that is funny!

If it makes me laugh then I don't care if it was taped for filmed.

 

Yep. And it is Chapman; in the bit, he leaves a meeting to go outside for a smoke and is nonchalantly looking around, until he happens to look directly into the camera and realises "Good Lord, I'm on film!" He looks around the front and back, goes back inside, and declares "Gentlemen, this place is surrounded by film!" Oh, no!

Anyway: I think the video/film split was a British thing as I don't recall seeing it used elsewhere much. And I generally prefer all-film because it looks less cheap.

 

Film all the way!

 

Sitcoms like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "The Office" are faux-reality TV, so it would look unrealistic if they used film.

 

If you watch the first episodes of another British comedy "As Time Goes By", you will notice that Jean, played by Judi Dench, actually has different colored hair for the scenes shot outdoors. It was obvious for the first season all outdoors filming was done either earlier or later than the indoors filming.

 

however they shot sports night

 

Film!

 

They don't look like video taped series, however. It may be HD vid, but it all looks like 24 fps film look to me. If they wanted actual "video look" they could shoot in 1080i or 720 60p. They do hand held documentary look, yes, but that can be film or video.

 

Just reread what I wrote - I mean I like single camera only. Like "Malcolm in the Middle".

Jeff

 

Yep. I think all sitcoms on the air right now are 24p video, with the lone possible exception of Two and a Half Men (still on film as of last year; not sure about this year).

I agree, it's not that easy to tell the difference between 24p HD and film in a sitcom. The giveaway is the highlights, and in some cases, the grain. In some ways, film is softer (depending on lenses and depth of field).

Curb Your Enthusiasm is a case of a show that started out in 4x3 standard-def video, looking horrible, and eventually graduated over time to very good-looking 24p HD video. It's a sitcom in a way, but because it's in an improvisational/reality style, it's kind of hard to categorize.

 

I chose film. Though, there are exceptions like 'Barney Miller'. I just think 'Barney Miller' would have a different feel if it was shot on film. You can get an idea of what it would have looked like from the pilot episode 'The Life and Times of Barney Miller' that was shot on film - it's one of the bonus features on the 'Complete Series' box set.

 

I think that video gave Barney Miller an intimacy that made one feel as if they were watching a play being performed a great ensemble cast onstage, which worked quite well. Couldn't imagine it ever being on film, either.

That said, I prefer film, and as well as shows that are not shot before studio audiences, which limits camera lighting and angles. My poster child for the worst looking sitcom was That 70's Show, which was one of the worst lit and ugliest videotaped shows that I have ever seen - I found it absolutely repulsive in its look.

 

That 70's Show was shot on film. It has a frame rate of 24fps.

If it were shot on Videotape it would be like Married with Children which is at 29.97fps (25.00fps for PAL).

Videotape has a more lifelike look to it, due to it's frame rate.

 

Script and timing are king in Comedy

The BBC interiors on VT,exteriors on film was not a' look' it was parsimony
It was cheaper and easier to do exteriors on 16mm with one camera than take a OB unit.
They never matched, it was almost part of the charm.
I like picture continuity
Its easy nowadays
I remember an early beeb soap (the Groves)where a stunt, a ladder fall, was on film and cued into a live broadcast at the wrong time (10 second run up cue).
We saw the reaction to the fall before the fall its self.....
Pythons and Spike preferred film, single camera,away from home, more control.
The BBC never used laughter tracks
Even all film shows were shown to a live audience and their laughter recorded live.

 

Thanks for correction - I guess the bad lighting threw me off, and made me think it was video that was made to look like film.

 

All shot on 35mm 3-perf by a very fine man, cinematographer Ron Browne (no longer with us). Ron did the best he could with a difficult set. There are reasons why the original show looked bad. I think you'll find the new HD transfer of the series looks much, much better. I worked on both the original and the HD, and we did a lot to spruce the old shows up.

I have worked on some very, very ugly sitcoms in my time, but I'm reluctant to name them. Most of them were for the WB and the shortlived UPN network, and some of those were extraordinarily bad. There are some 16mm neg sitcoms I worked on that weren't great; the most successful was Dave's World. I don't think anybody noticed because the show was generally funny. The ugliest sitcom I ever did a little work on was the 1980s Newhart show. Horrendously awful -- but very well-acted and well-written. Content trumps everything else.