I found an interesting article about the recent shift from the traditional multicam-sitcom formula to the more involved (and involving) single-cam format:
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The Death of the Multi-Cam Sitcom
This season boasts the launch of, by my count, only four new “multi-camera” sitcoms, resulting in the lowest offering in several years. Why has the one-time go-to format for comedy faded? What has, and will, replace it?
The invention of the multi-camera setup is widely credited to Desi Arnaz and I Love Lucy. This setup allows, as the name makes pretty obvious, multiple cameras to shoot the same action, saving time and money on editing in post-production. (See the setup here.) It has continued, since its inception, to be main vehicle for comedies, sporting events, and talk shows, and has even bled over somewhat into feature films (due to time and budget restraints, George Lucas used the format on the original Star Wars). If this setup has worked so well in the past, why has it seen such a sharp decline in the past decade?
Fewer creative limitations
One factor that has been constant, for the most part, in the sitcom, whether single- or multi-cam, has been the central location. In the traditional sitcom, the purpose is typically financial. When filming at a studio, filming is essentially a slave to where the studio audience can go, resulting in the building of a new set for every location. This natrually forces a limit on where a story can go, creatively.
However, now that studio setting has made way for shooting on location. Scrubs is filmed in an actual hospital. The Office is shot on location in an office building in Scranton, PA. So now, the possibilities for where a comedy can go are virtually limitless.
Audiences are smarter
In the old days of sitcoms, we were used to have everything wrapped up in 30 minutes, and we also used to be told when to laugh. Studies have shown that viewers watching a sitcom containing a laugh track will find it much funnier than viewers watching the same sitcom minus the laugh track. Why? Is the audience just too dim to get the jokes, or are the jokes that bad? Not necessarily. People are just more likely to laugh when they are laughing along with someone else. The laugh track facilitates that. The trap that sitcoms have largely fallen into is, rather than use the laugh track positively, it is used to try to convince the audience that whatever is happening on screen is, in fact, funny.
Audiences are now starting to realize that they know what is funny and what jokes are duds. Like I referenced in Monday’s review of The Class, there is some suicide humor that fell pretty flat, but, man, those guys in the audience sure did find it hilarious. Now, though, with the emergence of comedies like the gone-too-soon Arrested Development, Scrubs, My Name is Earl, and The Office, we have come to the point where we no longer rely on those behind the camera to dictate what is funny and what’s not. This has resulted in a more cerebral approach to comedy, versus a “Here I am, entertain me” approach.
What does this mean for the multi-cam setup and sitcoms?
It sounds like I have been dogging pretty hard on the multi-cam setup, and it shouldn’t be taken that way. The multi-cam setup has been, and continues to be, a vital ingredient of programs like network news, talk shows, and other shows that require quick turnaround, like daily soap operas. As long as there is a demand for these shows, the medium will have an important role to play.
But will there ever be a place for the multi-cam sitcom again? If so, the key word is originality. We have been hit with an endless wave of the same formulas: the family comedy (Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Two and a Half Men, and this season, the abysmal ‘Til Death), the buddy comedy (Friends, Will & Grace, How I Met Your Mother, and now Happy Hour, Twenty Good Years and The Class), and the workplace comedy (News Radio, Just Shoot Me, Becker and now Help Me Help You).
At the end of the 2003-2004 season, there was some talk about the death of the sitcom, especially with the departure of several popular shows like Frasier and Friends. That commentary was, at the same time, prophetic and flawed. The traditional sitcom is essentially a thing of the past. It has, instead, been replaced by a new genre of comedy, not to mention an unprecedented boom in the drama genre, namely Lost, and the wannabes thereof.
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from http://www.livingwithtv.com/
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3 comments:
Someone has been busy today....
Not exactly on topic, but I've noticed that some really good series are coming from cable networks and wonder how this affects programming choices and production at ABC, CBS, & NBC. (I mean more subtle than copying). Obviously Fox has hits and some of my favorite shows are on TNT and Comedy Central, for example. Many HBO and Showtime series are outstanding and unconventional.
BTW, the social psychological principle that explains why people find things funnier when others are laughing (e.g., laugh track) is called "social proof." One of my favorite examples of "social proof" is study that shows that when people hear a fire alarm (but don't haven't other cues that there is a fire) they look to others and will follow their lead in reacting (It doesn't matter that these others have no more information). Also, in ambiguous sitations decisions by bystanders to help are very often determined by the behavior of others (e.g., people walk by someone in distress on sidewalk until someone stops). Sounds obvious but there are a lot of examples that are quite astounding (e.g., why average-person-on-street testimonials work, cult behavior, etc.).
"Influence" by Robert Cialdini is a great, easy reading book full of fascinating examples of how others affect our behavior and the principles that explain it. He is a social psychologists, BTW.
Way off topic, but why is Minnie Driver now on a t.v. show on the FX network?
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