Single camera shorts techniques.

This blog post will cover the key points and terms of single camera productions and will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of single camera production. In a single camera production obviously only one camera is used, this gives the film makers the ability to get the audience involved in the scene without worrying about "Crossing the streams" in other words without getting a camera in shot, this allows easier POV's, arcs and much more camera movement. However, the fact that only one camera is used means that the scenes will take longer to do because the camera will have to be moved to capture different points of view whereas a multi camera set up allows the different perspectives to just be added in editing from the other cameras. This is an example of camera movement that would be impossible with a multi-camera set up 0:17.

It is much easier to light a scene using a single camera production as each shot can be set up individually so you can change the set up to get the best lighting for each shot which may have proven difficult to achieve with multi-camera as the scene is shot all in one go so the light may differ from each camera.

The lighting in this shot is only possible in single camera productions as multi-camera set ups require the whole shot to be evenly lit. 

When it comes to sound a lot of single camera productions will use a second, back up camera in scenes that have a lot of dialog going back and forth between characters, in editing the video will overlay the audio slightly so that it doesn't seem messy and jumpy. A lot of multi-camera productions i.e. The news will allow a camera or two to be seen in the shot and they will often have mics hidden with the "actors" clothes or they will have a boom pole to capture all the audio in the scene.

In this scene we can see that the boom is in shot, Boom mics can be difficult to work with in multi-camera set ups because it may not be in one cameras perspective but it may be right in the middle of another. In shows like the news it doesn't matter that you can see the equipment because it doesn't need to hide it like TV shows that are trying to force realism.

During post-production (editing) the editor(s) have a lot of footage to work with, especially when working on multi-camera productions, a lot of footage will be wasted in post- production which means that a lot of time and money has to be thrown away, however this does mean that the editor(s) are spoilt for choice on shot variation. However, on the other hand in single camera productions there is not as much footage which  means that the quality of the final product may not be perfect because the editor(s) can only work with what they have so is it worth spending the extra money or should you risk the quality been a little worse? Shows that are shown on a regular basis such as Eastenders will need to be produced quickly, multi-camera set ups allow the episodes to be made faster because there is multiple takes of the same shot giving editors lots of footage to work with.

Certain types/genres of TV and film are better off with either a single or a multi-camera production, for example, Soap operas, news shows, etc. is better off being multi-camera because you can capture the same reactions, dialog, etc. from the same moment and it won't feel as-though it has been acted out multiple times, a good example of this is Louis Theroux's documentaries. Whereas a horror films, most documentaies, etc. Would typically use single camera because it offers more movement and less equipment usually means that people will act more naturally in documentaries.

This is the set for Mrs Brown's Boys, a multi-camera comedy show. You can see the cameras and the lights.