By live TV shows I mean sitcoms and the like which were (are?) performed in front of a live audience.
What I’m wondering about is how they dealt with situations where they needed long breaks in middle of a scene or show, both in terms of how they occupied the audience, and even moreso, how they kept the audience from losing track of what’s going on (and thus losing their responsiveness and energy).
What got me to thinking about it is the Abbott & Costello Slowly I Turned sketch. The same actor (Sidney Fields) played both the bum in the jail cell and the lawyer who springs Costello. In the televised version, Fields appears as the lawyer seconds after Costello leaves the cell he had occupied with the bum. But Fields-as-bum was wearing a complete bum outfit, including a beard, while Fields-as-lawyer was well dressed and clean shaven. So there must have been a decent interval while Fields removed his beard and wig and changed clothing. But in the context of the story, it flowed directly. Did the audience just sit for 15 minutes of so doing nothing and then suddenly get back into things in mid-scene?
Why do you say fifteen minutes? Do you think the costume change takes that long? I’m not in the theater business but my understanding is that costume changes can be done very quickly, like under a minute. There are dedicated backstage staff for this and they may have costumes designed to take off and put on quickly. The beard was probably fake.
The entire 2nd season of Roc was filmed and broadcast live. The main cast were all accomplished stage veterans and never made mistakes.
Commercial breaks for the in-studio audience were the exact same length they were for the audience at home. I don’t know specifically how the Roc production handled it, but if it was anything like most TV shows with live audiences, there’s a no-name comedian, obscure cast member, staff writer, or whoever else they can talk into doing it, who steps in front of the studio audience and attempts to entertain them for however long the break needs to be.
Pull off fake beard, take off bum’s suit and show the lawyer’s suit underneath. Should take less than 30 seconds, especially since the bum’s suit probably is held together in the back with a zipper or snaps, and a stage hand would help.
You’ve picked a weak example. “Slowly I turned” was originally a live stage act, so it didn’t allow for a delay (and of there was one, the actors knew how to fill time).
I don’t know if you’ve seen the video (only one person clicked on it, it would appear). It looks like any other clothing, with different jackets, pants etc. The beard is certainly fake, but you would need to wash off whatever was holding it on.
Not sure what you mean with this, but I’m guessing you did not see the video, and your comment reflects that.
“Slowly I turn” can easily be done live with no breaks, but if you want to do the A&C lawyer add-on at the end, and also reuse the same actor who played the bum to play the lawyer, then it raises the timing issue.
I’m really struggling to remember what show it was, but I recently saw a video in which there was a long “montage” sequence where the character and her apartment went through several changes in one long shot, done by some extremely clever camera angles and complex coordination of the production crew. I think there was one point at which they briefly had a double seen from behind but the rest of it was just brilliant planning and execution. If anyone knows the sequence I mean, do ping a link.
With regard to costume changes, I once saw an otherwise unremarkable farce in the theatre in which the main comic character went offstage on one side and reappeared in such an insanely short time from the other side in different costume that the whole audience gasped (myself included). I mean, we’re talking less than ten seconds. It was unholy. And not a double.
It occurs to me I didn’t address this point. I have been to live tapings of non-live shows and the answer is: they have a comedian whose job it is before the show starts and during the breaks to keep the audience energy levels up by keeping them laughing. It’s not an easy job, but I note that they tend to recycle material (on the assumption that very few audience members are repeat attendees). It’s usually a mix of prepared stuff and improv, given that they often don’t know how long they have to keep going for but will have to stop on a dime when the producer says it’s time to film again.
In terms of timing, for the better shows they can rattle through the filming pretty efficiently with few mistakes, and then there’s a pause while they check the tapes and decide what retakes they want. For the less-good shows, it can be a horrific slog. I’ve been through tapings for half-hour shows that have taken 2-3 hours from coming in and sitting down to leaving, and one horrible experience that took six hours for a terrible sitcom pilot. And you can’t leave.
I’ve also been to a couple broadcast-live-in-real-time shows (notably The Last Leg), which has quite a good warm-up guy. You come in 30-45 minutes ahead of time, you get about 20 minutes of warm-up material, an hour for the show with a couple of commercial breaks, a bit of promotional stuff afterward and you’re done. The Last Leg broadcasts live on a Friday in the UK but repeats in Australia the following week, so they record a couple of promos for the Australian market after the show’s over while the audience is still there to cheer and clap, and then you’re done.
Mind you, sometimes the attempt to record the promos sometimes goes awry, especially when Johnny Vegas is involved…
In my youth, I read several books about the live-TV era. (But my youth was closer to that era than to the present, so no cites. Sorry.)
I remember one story about a young actor who later became famous (Paul Newman, I think, but I could be wrong) delivering an entire monologue framed in close up while several costume people changed his outfit.
There’s always a way, if you think hard enough. And practice it enough.
