"single camera" vs. "multi camera" ?

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

Could someone explain differences between the two types of productions
(beyond the obvious of using more cameras)?

Thanks.

[Car...@aol.com]

Multi (usually three)-camera shows are most often sitcoms recorded before a live audience. Three cameras are used to pick up the action from all angles during a continuous performance.

Single camera shows record each shot with a single camera. Typically, a "master shot" of the scene is recorded from one all-encompassing angle. Then the camera is repositioned -- while adjustments are made to lighting, sound, makeup, etc. -- for alternate angles and close-ups. There's more of a "movie look" to single-camera shows.

John L

[W/Q]

Multi-cams have been around since nearly the beginning of network TV
time. I Love Lucy popularized the form in 1951. Prior to that, what
few sitcoms aired were largely dead air sitcoms, that is, shot on
stage, often live, with no audience. The first single cam sitcom is
noted as being The Hank McCune Show, which preceded Lucy by a year or
two, depending if you go by its syndicated or network run. That show
came with canned laughter, which also became standard use throughout
the 50s and especially the 60s. All in the Family in the 70s
reinvigorated the multi-cam format with its first use of videotape,
instead of film, thus almost mimicking a "live" feel with the show and
increasing the decibel level of the studio audience through it. It
would spawn a golden age of just such sitcoms throughout the first
half of the decade. Throughout the 80s and 90s sitcoms largely tended
to be in the multi-cam vein with handfuls of single-cams here and
there, about half with laugh tracks and half without. Multi-cams
gradually began to fall out of favor in the mid-2000s with only CBS
and the mini-nets WB and UPN still churning them out fairly
regularly. But with the demise of WB and UPN in 2006, CBS became
virtually the only game in town for a steady stream of multi-cams,
while the other networks increasingly strayed off into single-cam
territory, but without laugh tracks.

Interestingly, with all the single cams that have aired over the last
decade, maybe about 100 or so, viewers never really seemed to embrace
them in large numbers. Sure, they may score in the 18-49 demos, but
in terms of total viewers, they're practically never to be seen in the
Top 25. Only two single cams managed to crack the Top 25 in the last
decade, Scrubs for just a single season early on and now Modern Family
for a couple of seasons. Otherwise, invariably, the CBS multi-cams
always seem to continue to rank at the top. Why is that? I have a
theory. It's as simple as the laughter. Viewers, it seems, still
want to feel included in the jokes, whether they're funny or not, and
not always have to try to play guessing games with a single cam show
trying to figure out if something was funny or not and if they should
even be laughing. In other words, just going by total viewer ratings,
most viewers prefer multi-cams because it's probably less demanding on
them and that they just like the feel of the "inclusiveness" with the
studio audience that comes with watching them.

[Professor Bubba]

In article
<835ace4c-6417-4f00...@j9g2000vbk.googlegroups.com>, W/Q

This makes me want to talk about the 39-episode run of The
Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason was devoted to kinescopes. Gleason and
his staff would watch "the film" of the previous Saturday's installment
of their variety show in order to see how it played on the small
screen. As much as Gleason hated to rehearse, he was all about the
day-after stuff.

The variety show was faltering by 1955, and CBS wanted Gleason to
change his format. Gleason's second half-hour would become The
Honeymooners. Gleason didn't want to do it because he wanted to work
"live." Then he discovered the Electronicam process, a DuMont
invention that used a prism arrangement to break whatever the camera
saw into two streams -- one live, so Gleason and his people could watch
what was being done on stage as it was happening, and the other to
film. It looked better than kinescope but wasn't quite as crisp as
film.

Unfortunately, the traditional theater in which Gleason and company did
The Honeymooners was cramped to begin with and stuffed with lights and
equipment to boot, so the live audience Gleason had insisted on
couldn't even see the stage. It had to watch the show on monitors.

It doesn't seem to have mattered, since The Honeymooners was in
constant reruns for decades, and at this writing is still being run in
Chicago as it approaches the 60th anniversary of its premiere.

[Remysun]

One more thing about the 180 rule. It's really about continuity,
because if you switch between shots that violate the rule, the
positions of the actors will flip -- the guy on the right becomes the
guy on the left -- and editing is about avoiding those WTF moments for
the viewers.

[Remysun]

On Jun 18, 1:34 pm, hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> Could someone explain differences between the two types of productions
> (beyond the obvious of using more cameras)?

Typically multi-cams have an elaborate one half of the background,
like a stage play (either with or without a live audience), because
the editing system that use does not want to cross an imaginary line
called the 180 rule. All the cams stay behind one side of the line,
so that they do not see the other cameras as they are all running at
the same time. This creates technical limitations on what the cameras
can do, but gives more freedom to the actors to just act, because
there is no way to really play to the camera when there are three or
four of them.

Actors can play to a single camera, though, and the camera has freedom
to move, but it takes a lot of time to create the setups needed. A
multicam can be shot in one magical take, but that is an impossibility
with single camera productions, because the production is made by
assembling the takes like a jigsaw puzzle. Multicamera footage is time
coded, which means that cutting to another shot will almost always
have matching action. That matching action has to be planned for in a
single camera production.

Hope that helps, Hanco.

[anim8rFSK]

In article
<78e20ea7-92bd-4fd6...@b1g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,

Yeah, but, it seems that editors these days have completely forgotten
about that.

--
"Every time a Kardashian gets a TV show, an angel dies."

[Adam H. Kerman]

anim8rFSK <anim...@cox.net> wrote:
>Remysun <remys...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>One more thing about the 180 rule. It's really about continuity,
>>because if you switch between shots that violate the rule, the
>>positions of the actors will flip -- the guy on the right becomes the
>>guy on the left -- and editing is about avoiding those WTF moments for
>>the viewers.

>Yeah, but, it seems that editors these days have completely forgotten
>about that.

Everybody's dyslexic these days.

[Mason Barge]

They are ton!

[Mason Barge]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:34:10 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>Could someone explain differences between the two types of productions
>(beyond the obvious of using more cameras)?

Actually, the number of cameras is not the biggest difference.

"Single camera", think of a motion picture shot on a soundstage or
location. They usually do multiple takes and a lot of editing and
post-production. They sometimes use more than one camera, especially if a
high-cost one-shot special effect is used. But generally the lighting,
sets etc. are made with a specific point of view in mind, for maximum
quality.

The camera can move to follow the actors.

The point of view is 360 degrees.

"Three-camera" (now "multi-camera"), think of someone filming their kid's
dance recital. Now beef it up just a bit, using three cameras synched for
color, etc., so that they can splice together a film where the point of
view changes from time to time.

It's way cheaper, since the idea is that you do a single take and use one
set or a limited number of sets. You can do it "live", although you might
have to do a second or third take, but the action is usually shot in
sequence in a comparably very short amount of time. Lighting and set-up
can be standardized.

The POV is 180 degrees, since all cameras are running at once and you
don't want them filming each other.

There can be total overlap. "ER" did a live show in 360 multi-cam, which
takes a lot of planning about camera placement.