HenryDuBrow

Re: Why TV productions are recorded this way?

Andy, thanks!

Mark Oates

Re: Why TV productions are recorded this way?

Another thought has crossed my mind:-

Look how television production has changed to mirror film production in the last ten years or so. Most drama shows (like Doctor Who) are shot with single camera set-ups with film-style lighting as well as being filmised. Back in the old days of television, VT shows were studio-bound with the odd bit of location filming telecined in. They were recorded with flat lighting to avoid problems and usually with multiple camera setups.

In the early days, even if shows didn't go out live, they were performed as if live with the feeds from the three or four cameras on the floor going through the vision mixer and out to the VT machines in the basement. Because VT was an absolute bastard to edit in the early 1960s, editing was kept to a minimum and if a show could not be recorded contiguously then as much as could be recorded was run through in recording blocks. ISTR one or two shows like Adam Adamant were telerecorded so that the film could be edited and the episode screened from the edited telerecording.

Programme making in the 1960s was a real seat of the pants enterprise.

J Mark Oates
The Sprocketeer
Columnist and Reviewer
sprockethole.myreviewer.com
DVD.Reviewer.co.uk/ MyReviewer.com
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Do Not Be Afraid. That sound is simply my mind boggling.

AndyMcKinney

Re: Why TV productions are recorded this way?

I remember reading in one of Katherine Leigh Scott's books about Dark Shadows (the '60s US vampire soap) that, as you say, tape was difficult to edit in the '60s and so they rarely, if ever, stopped, which is why so many "bloopers" were left in. About the only reason they would stop was if someone said a swear word on camera, which, she said, happened a few times when a certain cast member (or members) were so displeased with a performance they did it on purpose to make sure they'd get a re-take.