When you sat in the bleachers as an audience member watching
the filming of an episode of Taxi you
were faced with several impediments to your enjoyment due to technological
advancements that had not yet advanced.
First, though the gallery was raised – the first row, maybe
five feet above the soundstage floor, the half-dozen rows of seats rising
incrementally from there – it was still difficult to see the actors over the intervening
(three, and later, four) pedestalled cameras that were covering them. A lot of times, you went home with a lasting
recollection of the cameramen’s backs.
Along with fleeting glimpses of the cast. You could hear
just fine – overhead microphones amplifying the voices, but sometimes, you
could see, and sometimes you couldn’t.
And I’m not talking about people with bad eyes. I’m talking about everybody. People with bad eyes just saw what little you
could catch sight of blurrier.
The problem was, there were no, as there would be later,
overhanging monitors for the audience to look at instead of the obstructed view
of the stage. Why? Because Taxi
was shot on film and um, well – fumpher,
fumpher, covering a screaming deficit in technological know-how – you
cannot see – and therefore not transmit via a monitor – the images on the film you’ve
been shooting, because those images are invisible until you send the footage to
Fotomat and have the developed
product returned to you a number of later.
Short answer – when you are filming, there is nothing immediate
to show.
Unable to see most of the action, what the studio audience
laughed at was pretty much what they were hearing. Inevitably, this led to scripts being written
in almost one hundred percent “verbal mode”, giving the audience the experience
of attending, more or less, a radio show with cameras.
Clever dialogue was the Order of the Day. Physical comedy was at a minimum (with the
exception of Lucy, which I don’t know
how they did it), as were subtle facial reactions. You can see how that would influence the
writing – what you put in and what the
technological limitations encouraged you to leave out. You were working with a palette of virtually
one color – and that color was words.
The “Swing Set” scenes were even harder for the audience to
see, as they were situated in the remote recesses of the soundstage, the bulk
of the stage occupied by the oversized, used-every-week “Standing Sets.”
No matter how funny those “Swing Set” scenes were, they invariably
garnered weaker laughs, due to an inadequate connection between the audience
and the actors.
It was understandable.
The “Standing Set” scenes were in front of them; the “Swing
Set” scenes were in Wyoming.
Things changed via incremental technological steps. First, there was the “Video Assist”
arrangement, whereby video cameras were affixed to the top of each film
camera. Unlike film, you can see what’s
on videotape right away. (Don’t ask me
why.) These video cameras were, somehow,
then connected to monitors, four or so of which, were suspended in front of the
audience.
Now they could actually see what was going on. From a writing standpoint, “Video Assist” provided
the opportunity for more nuanced writing, many laughs now coming from subtle
facial reactions that would have been undetectable to the audience before the “Video
Assist” process came along.
Now that they were available, it was not unusual for many
members of the audience to watch the show almost entirely on the monitors,
which made me wonder why they had bothered to show up when they could do the
same thing at home when the show was on television.
The next step was the “Digital Revolution.” Again, don’t ask me how, but with “digital”, looking
at the monitors, you could see everything the cameras were shooting. No more dead “Swing Set” scenes shot in
obscure corners of the soundstage, which, in turn, created an increased
enthusiasm for writing them, when before, it was, “Do we really want to put all
our energies into a scene they’re never going to laugh at?”
“Digital” also allowed for outdoor shooting, something film
shows almost never did, because of the economics, and because the outside
footage could not possibly be processed and edited in time to present it to the
studio audience on show night.
(Seinfeld took
particular advantage of outdoor shooting, their “New York Street” – actually a standing
outdoor set close to Seinfeld’s soundstage
in Studio City, California – becoming virtually another character on the show.)
Today, the majority of comedies, such as Modern Family and Parks and Recreation, are filmed “digitally” with a single camera
(and no audience), a process, which, prior
to “digital”, was almost entirely abandoned (the exception being M*A* S*H), because of its prohibitive expense.
“Digital” filming allows writers to make little weekly,
half-hour movies, the advanced technology providing a flow and an expanded
storytelling range unavailable to old-time TV writers such as myself. Compared to them, we were cavemen chiseling
pictures onto a rock.
So why then do many of today’s writers and noted sitcom afficionados revere the “quality” work
that we did – the “Golden Age of Comedy”, blah, blah, blah?
If this is indeed the case, the explanation, I believe, lies
in the fact that we made the fullest use of our “low tech” availabilities.
The result?
Better storytelling.
Richer characters.
Can you have both? Or
course you can. You just have to
remember that technology is a tool, not an end in itself. And it might help to include, as consultants,
writers who were required to do things another way.
Not mentioning any names, but a lot of us are available.
3 comments:
I had no idea that your smart & witty scripts were caused by obstructed views. Who'd a thunk?
Last night, due to a box malfunction, I was unable to watch the regular re-runs on TV, so I watched Cheers. Turns out, it was one of your episodes (Diane buys Sam tix to the Hagler fight; Sam unthinkingly tells her he loves her for such a gift). Excellent show. Since there was a scene in Diane's apt., I was aware that it was 'off set.' I was not yet aware that many of the studio audience wouldn't be able to see it.
I thought, however, that often times the powers that be would augment the studio laughter with some canned laughs. Did that happen on any of your shows?
And why, in the beginning of so many shows, did an ethereal voice (or Carla) inform us that 'Cheers is filmed before a LIVE studio audience,' instead of just saying a studio audience?
Anyway - interesting stuff. And thanks for entertaining me last night!
I agree that today's sitcoms desperately need more real characters and original stories as it all seems like comedy writing by numbers. The only comedy I regularly watch is 'Seinfeld' though if 'Taxi' and 'Cheers' were on I would watch them too. Guess young tv execs these days just want comedy that will appeal to the lowest common denominator like themselves. Be great to hear you get the call up again Earl!
There were scenes on Maude between her and husband Walter that could last 10 minutes, and were like a mini-play, in which the characters went through several emotional changes and built to very dramatic and humorous moments. It was like a play.
That kind of writing and acting is no longer found, required or possible, since writers no longer need or have that skill. Many quick scenes, often with no ending or interesting moment, are the norm. And an enormous amount of wordplay that seems to be coming out of the writers heads, rather than the characters.
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