Various pressures–most of them economic–affect the techniques used in producing each of the three genres discussed.
Situation comedies are generally filmed or taped before a live audience. One reason for this is that actors find it easier to peform comedy when they are actually in front of an audience. The presence of the studio audience also gives the producers feedback on which jokes actually strike people as funny, and which ways of saying lines has the best impact. The common practice is to do a story “live” twice, before two different audiences, and then edit together the shots which come out best from each staging.
Because they are done before a live audience, the cameramen are limited as to the positions they can take to shoot the actors. Whenever one watched Seinfeld, the scenes in his living room were always shot from the point of view of the wall opposite the front door. On Cheers we saw the stairs up to Melville’s hundreds of times, but never saw what the wall across from it looked like. This was because there were “invisible fourth walls”; in reality there was no wall, only the space the cameras occupied, and the audience behind them. What’s more, objects were moed infrequently within these sets, and there was always a lot of wide open space–the better to move actors around on their marks on the floor.
You have likely noticed that actors on television situation comedies tend to have living rooms that look a lot bigger than yours. That’s because they are bigger than yours. When she was on Kate and Allie actress Jane Curtin was asked if she thought it was realistic that her character and Susan St. James’ could afford just a big apartment. She said it was not, but if they showed the place they could afford, they couldn’t squeeze the three cameras in.
Because there is an attempt to play the story straight through without interuption, there are typically very few sets in a situation comedy. This is why the cast of Seinfeld always ate at the same coffee shop, and why, generally, they always ate at the same booth; it saved the director the trouble of composing the picture each time.
Most sitcoms still use a three camera technique which was pioneered for I Love Lucy. Rather than giving the cameramen elaborate directions for composing each shot, the cameras are assigned the jobs of shooting two people in a frame, one person in the frame, or a group shot. The result is that each scene is shot from three perspectives. The editor then picks and chooses from these shots to make an attractive sequence which tells the story effectively.
Because the story is shot continuously, it is usually the set, rather than the actors, which are lit; it is not practical to take the time to set up lights so that each actor can be shown to the best advantage in each shot. What’s more, the sets are usually very evenly and brightly lit.
A good example of what this means comes from an episode of St. Elsewhere in which Dr. Auschlander and Dr. Westphall stopped off at a bar near Harvard Square. The bar was, in fact, Cheers, and since the lighting was for a drama rather than a sitcom, it was much more nuanced and realistic. The bar in Cheers always looked very bright on Cheers. On St. Elsewhere it was very dark and shadowy, but the actors still showed up clearly, because a bank of lights was arranged on each of them for each shot.
The most common approach to lighting in a television drama is a three light technique. Each principal actor in a scene has three spots directed on him or her. First there is a flood set at a 3/4’s angle from one side of the face so that the person will photograph clearly. Then a softer, more diffused light is shone from the opposite side to replace the natural shadows which the contours of a person’s face cause, and to dillute the effect of the bright shine the first light causes so it will not be obvious that they have a spot light on them. Finally, there is a light at their back so that they are clearly defined from the background.
The sound work in dramas tends to be more detaled too, with microphones directed at each actor in a scene. Often they are arranged so that they are off to the side, just out of view of the camera In a sitcom the microphones are gnerally all overhead, on cranes, and the technicians do what they can to “follow” the actors. This is one reason that actors on sitcoms tend to sit or stand relatively still a good deal of the time. In the last season of MAS*H the production became very sloppy at times, and one could see the ends of microphones dangling above actors.
Because the cameras are set up specially for each scene in a drama, there is a greater variety to the kinds of shots used. There are, for instance, more close-ups on actors.
A soap opera does not have the same pressures as a sitcom to shoot continuously and quickly. Since a good deal of material has to be turned out each week, though, the production cannot be as carefully planned or executed as in a weekly drama. In a soap opera it is generally the set rather than the individual actors which are lit, but there is some variation allowed on this. In a soap opera the set tends to be lit more naturally than in a sitcom, so that more shadows and dim light appear. Another interesting difference between soap operas and the other forms is that there is a frequent use of extreme close-ups, so as to emphasize the emotions which actors are registering.
The styles of acting in the three genres differ somewhat as well. In soap operas the acting is often the least polished. This is not a reflection on the actors involved, but on the fact that they have to learn and deliver a great quantity of dialogue quickly. One is far likelier to see an actor stammer, or pause to collect themselves, in a soap opera than on a sitcom or a weekly drama.
In a situation comedy, actors are playing to an audience in a theater and so, like stage actors, they often “play to the balcony”; projecting and making large gestures more to a degree they might not otherwise.
In a weekly drama the acting is likely to be the most naturalistic–but then, these actors have the most opportunity to rehearse, and most chances to try something again if they don’t like how it turns out the first time.