I was watching a rerun of the Brady Bunch yesterday and notice the “back yard” was astroturf- you can even see the joints- and an obvious matte painting behind simple props. Even classics like the Wizard of Oz and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers the matte painting backgrounds are extremely obvious.
Did audiences in earlier times not notice or care? Did studios not care figuring people will watch it no matter what? Did artists get better at paintings? I know they’re still in use but less commonly, and normally when they are you can’t tell.
Movie and (especially) TV sets evolved from theater sets which were never intended to totally convince the audience of their authenticity. It’s only in the last 30 or 40 years that set design and FX have evolved past the point where they no longer depend on the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
Screens were a LOT smaller, and not so high quality. Also, the broadcast itself wasn’t always the greatest quality.
Things that are painfully visible now (all of the original Star Trek) on my huge HDtv are much less noticeable when I’m watching on my ancient 15" box.
What I think is an interesting related thought experiment is the new higher frame-rate that Peter Jackson and Cameron are all so excited about.
Judging by the critics and reviews, apparently if this new faster frame rate catches on, set and scene designers and artists are going to really have to up their game again, because the technology once again has improved to the point of making the artificial environments of the movies *obviously *artificial. I’m guessing it will spur a move to more on-location work, or that there will have to be some innovative (and expensive) move towards building “real” sets and props, and subsequently selling them to collectors or film buffs/rabid fans.
The Wizard of Oz was a fantasy. I believe they planned to shoot Seven Brides on location–but budget constraints got in the way. Still, audiences often accepted movies as plays; a certain amount of “staginess” was OK. As competition with TV heated up, the studios put more money into film production.
As far as the TV shows went–it’s been mentioned that TV’s were small & reception was often crappy. We’ve gotten spoiled by our big HD screens.
However, even as a kid, I remember sitting with my sibs & razzing *The Lone Ranger *for the paper-mache boulder with fake shrubs that was “the clearing outside town” in so many episodes. And I suspect Star Trek of using the same boulder–with psychedelic paint–for various planetscapes…
Audiences didn’t care. They were interested in the character and the story and unless something was terribly jarring (Andrew Sarris once said that there’s nothing wrong with using a painted backdrop, but when you were focusing on the backdrop as though it were the view of a natural scene, you’re doing it wrong), they ignored it.
Nowadays, too many people freak out if something isn’t “realistic.” They actually think it can automatically ruin everything else, if you can believe that.
Check outHarry Langdon’s "Long Pants"at 11:30. Throwing his shadow all over the backdrop. They didn’t even try to make it less obvious. Capra did better later in his career.
Even today, in SitComs, the scenes involving the characters driving cars are obviously fake. (The background road doesn’t always match the drivers steering actions, for example.) The audience today still doesn’t care, IMO. As long as the dialog/story is entertaining, people are willing to put up with a lot.
I dunno, back in the 90’s, well before HDTV was a thing in America, Nick At Night ran promos for Brady Bunch with a song where one of the lines was about mowing the astroturf.
What always got me was when the filmed scenes through a dark filter to get a “night” effect. Shadows always fell the way they do in the daytime, and the fires were never as bright as they would be in real life. Also, you could see all the way to the horizon, rather than just within the circle of light provided by a fire.
The Lone Ranger was one that I came to mention - I remember a scene with two characters talking in front of a door… and the door was painted on the wall.
The asteroid that threatened “Miramanee”'s world was also the habitat-asteroid of “The World Is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky.”
Gawd, I’m such a geek.
I was just watching an old fourth season “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” episode, where they had rigged up a set of rooms to be the interior of a submarine. Yeah, modern attack subs have “walls” and “celings” and “doors” just like a suite of rooms. NOT! It was painful, especially since, in other episodes, they’d done it right. “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is also notable for having about ten to fifteen different car chases down one particular double-lane dirt road, with the lanes separated by eucalyptus trees.
And damn near every tv show used Mulholland Drive for car chases, and an awful lot of movies…
Little did they realize they had just deflected the World of Yonada, only to encounter it again in another seven episodes.
The rock formations featured in “Arena” (and “Shore Leave” and “Friday’s Child,” and probably other episodes as well) were actually at a rental facility called Africa, USA. Many other shows filmed there in the '60s, including Daktari and Cowboy in Africa.
