Directing and Producing for Television, 5th Edition

chapter sixScripted Format

Most dramas that are produced for television are shot motion-picture style using a single camera. This chapter, and indeed this book, focuses for the most part on multiple-camera television. The emphasis here is on the techniques used in directing programs such as daytime dramas, most sitcoms, classical music, operas, ballet, and theatrical productions shot as they are being performed. The conventions we now use for shooting multiple-camera television come from the early days of live television when directors were imported from the theatrical community. The skills they had learned in the theater were effective when it became necessary to put dramas and scored musicals on the air. They found the stage managers prompt ...