Film and TV Production: Multi-camera case study

A multi-camera production is exactly what it says. It is a production that is filmed with several cameras. The minimum cameras required that would bring out the best results are 3. It can be done with 2 but that limits your choice of shots and the end result will not be nearly as good as a 3 camera production. The different cameras also have different jobs in the production.

Multi camera in football

Multi-camera in TV programme (E.g. Big Bang Theory)

Multi-camera techniques are seen a whole range of TV production. They are seen in sport, the news, soap operas, sitcoms, chat shows and more. And they all do this for different reasons. In sport, news and other live event type productions they are used because that's is what they are. They are live events and would be impossible to film such things with only just one camera. If you ever tried to film a live event with only one camera them you would miss something essential that you may be required to have caught on camera. In sport you may miss a goal. In live music/ comedy productions you may miss something if you were to take a shot of audience reactions or if that camera just suddenly stopped working. With scripted productions it isn't as bad. In shows like "How I Met Your Mother" and "The Big Ban Theory" they use multi-camera. For Big Bang theory it is because they have a live audience and need to play out the whole scene to acquire the right audience reaction. They couldn't film it by first shot of the day start of a joke, second shot of the day end of the joke from the previous scene. And in soaps they have begun to use it to get the best reaction from the actors in the scenes. For a sad scene all the way to a happy and fun scene. This is why multi-camera techniques are used and now more and more different types of productions are taking to them as there have been noticeable results from other production that have gone from single camera to multi-camera.

(A short video about what it is like back stage of a multi-camera production)

Depending on the genre of the show effects how many cameras are used in the production. In sporting events they use well over 20 as a whole so they can get footage from every angle of the game. This helps when thee is a difference of opinion on whether one of the players has broken one of the rules it is a quick and easy way to resolve it. Other shows like previous comedies I listed like Big Bang theory use 3-4 cameras and make it so much easier to get the episode filmed and edited, along with getting the sound reactions from the audience. Not only do sit-coms use this but so do talk shows and game shows.

Take Mock the Week for example. There are a possible 4-9 camera used in making this. 1 or 2 are used on either team and 1 is focused solely on Dara O'Briain. Then there are 3-4 used on sections such as "Scenes we'd like to see" and "News real" where select members or the whole of the groups go head to head in competitions away from the desks where they try to make the most fun out of a news piece or topic.

In a sporting event like a football game they do use many cameras so they can get a full coverage of the game and present the best experience for the fans watching at home. They have over 3/4 of the cameras set up around the stadium from different angles to get as many shots as possible. For example there are cameras that are on the floor on the edge of the field, Multiple in the stands and higher up to get a over head view of the game, there are some attached to special poles and other devices that allows the camera to move overhead of the crowds that came to watch the game which is useful for a moving shot of the players or to get shots of the exited fans, the rest are set up to solely record the fans and get their reactions for cut-aways when required.

Both of these productions are similar in some aspects but are also completely different. Mock the Week and sporting games both have many different shots used to make the show. Even though sporting events, once again I will say football, have possibly over triple the cameras used they are still both multi-camera productions. Mock the week is almost fully set up and they can draw out a more accurate camera plan as to what the people involved in that episode would be doing, where as in football you never know what the players will do next, who they will pass to, where they will run, so it makes it more difficult to plan out where to place the cameras. So when you get down to it they are pretty similar. In both all of the people taking part apart from the hosts are just improvising all the way through. They are going head to head, granted in 2 different genres entirely, to win. The comedians in Mock the week may have prepared some material they could use for the show and the football players would have thought up some sort of strategy they could try to beat their opponents. When you put all this together it makes setting up the cameras in these productions difficult on both genres. You cannot entirely know that one of the people involved will go somewhere or do something that will take them off of camera shot and there fore spoiling the shot. It is easier however on game shows as they do tell the contestants where to go and have areas made for them to stand or sit so they do appear on camera.

Doing it like this provides the best way to cover the action and is why more cameras are used in sporting events than anything else. In a live concert like the Eurovisions the acts are on a stage and therefore will require much less cameras than it would take to film a whole football stadium. And there are more cameras used on chat and game shows because it provides a larger variety of shots that would be available and has more than scripted multi-camera productions because in scripted productions you tell the actors where to go and what to do. Changing the shots can increase viewer interest as if you are watching a whole game show from one long shot, yes it can still be entertaining but you will get bored seeing it from the same angle constantly.

Britain's got talent
Britain's got talent is a simple enough show, its a talent show with 4 judges and people are competing and showing off their talent so they can perform at the royal variety. Some go on for fun but those who make it to the final are in it for the whole and are trying as hard as they can to perform in front of the royal family. And it is a multi-camera production. There are 3-4 cameras on the acts, 1-3 on the judges and 1 on the audience. The different cameras on the act is used to show different angles of what they are doing. For example the 2012 winner "Ashley and Pudsey" Was a dancing dog act where the change in shots had shown all the different things this dog could do that won them the competition. Then the cameras on the judges was reaction shots of that they were seeing and provided shot for when they were speaking their opinion of it. It is the same with the audience camera, it was provided to give a good reaction shot of the act. When this is being edited it is only 5 seconds before it is out on live TV so the editors must watch each shot closely and if they accidentally choose the wrong shot then that could change how the act looks on screen and could make the home viewers either vote for them or someone else. The cameras are located to the sides on the stage, 2 in front of the stage at different areas to provide a long shot that gets the act, the whole stage and the judges. The other provided a closer long shot so you can see the act closer and there are two of these located on the left and right sides.