Introduction
Single camera production is the use of one camera within the media production, whether it be a music video, short film or even a movie. Single camera production also tends to use different camera angles and often requires a lot of editing after shooting. Single camera production is commonly associated with low budget films & film companies as they haven't got sufficient funding to purchase many high quality cameras for a film production.
Advantages & Disadvantages Of Single Camera Production
The advantages of a single camera production is that it makes the viewer feel like they are in the scene with one continuos shot. This encourages the viewer to feel more emotions than a film with more than one camera because the use of one camera establishes that the viewer is at the exact scene in real time. Another advantage is that it is cheap, this is good for low budget film producers as they don't have as much money to purchase more than one camera.
Considering how good these advantages are, single camera production also comes with pretty heavy disadvantages too. The first disadvantage being that you can only take one shot from one angle at a time meaning that the whole shooting process can take a while to perfect it to the director's preference. Another disadvantage is that when it comes to the putting the film together in the studio, the producer needs to put the different shots in an appropriate positions and times and this could cause the production of the film to take even longer prior to it's release date.
Format & Genre
In this assignment I'm going to focus on Series/Serial drama production whereas also describe their formats and narrative structure as they show a lot of useful techniques and camera angles to analyse.
An example for a Drama series is Top Boy, a crime drama series released 31 October 2011 - 3 Novemeber 2011. Series are done within weekly or monthly episodes within them and some don't often go all year round, such as Top Boy only having completed it's first season if episodes within 4 days. A second season was released in 2013, a year and a half after it's debut. Top Boy was a series released to give an insight to the general public of how life was for certain young kids to young adults based on drugs and crime.
Single camera production is the use of one camera within the media production, whether it be a music video, short film or even a movie. Single camera production also tends to use different camera angles and often requires a lot of editing after shooting. Single camera production is commonly associated with low budget films & film companies as they haven't got sufficient funding to purchase many high quality cameras for a film production.
Advantages & Disadvantages Of Single Camera Production
The advantages of a single camera production is that it makes the viewer feel like they are in the scene with one continuos shot. This encourages the viewer to feel more emotions than a film with more than one camera because the use of one camera establishes that the viewer is at the exact scene in real time. Another advantage is that it is cheap, this is good for low budget film producers as they don't have as much money to purchase more than one camera.
Considering how good these advantages are, single camera production also comes with pretty heavy disadvantages too. The first disadvantage being that you can only take one shot from one angle at a time meaning that the whole shooting process can take a while to perfect it to the director's preference. Another disadvantage is that when it comes to the putting the film together in the studio, the producer needs to put the different shots in an appropriate positions and times and this could cause the production of the film to take even longer prior to it's release date.
Format & Genre
In this assignment I'm going to focus on Series/Serial drama production whereas also describe their formats and narrative structure as they show a lot of useful techniques and camera angles to analyse.
An example for a Drama series is Top Boy, a crime drama series released 31 October 2011 - 3 Novemeber 2011. Series are done within weekly or monthly episodes within them and some don't often go all year round, such as Top Boy only having completed it's first season if episodes within 4 days. A second season was released in 2013, a year and a half after it's debut. Top Boy was a series released to give an insight to the general public of how life was for certain young kids to young adults based on drugs and crime.
An example of a Drama serial is EastEnders. EastEnders tend to run with continuous stories all year round. EastEnders runs everyday of the week excluding Wednesday, Saturday & Sunday and the soap's purpose is to portray everyday life that the viewers of the show live in. For a soap like EastEnders, it is highly unlikely to see it end any sooner as it is one of the UK's most watched soap and most interesting storyline ever.
Close-Up Shots: Close-Up Shots are used to take a closer look at an object or to take a closer look to a actor's facial expression. This establishes to the audience without the character having to express his/her feelings via word of mouth.
Another example of the use of a Close-Up Shot is when Max was in the interview room and being questioned about how his two daughters dropped off the top of the Pub's roof. The shot showed Max Branning crying and stressed out after witnessing what happened to his own daughters. Seeing a picture of Max's face shows us that he is stressed out to the max. (No pun intended 🙂)
The use of sound in Top Boy however is completely different to EastEnders use of sound. As Top Boy's episodes always opens with a upbeat mild-grime track it's mainly used to attract the target of the series, which is young teens to young adults. The use of the intro track is mainly to keep the audience engaged till the first scene starts. The producer also decided to use the backing music track from the "Grime" genre for the opening credits because a lot of kids often listen to the popular genre and it also establishes near enough what the series could be about or what you're most likely to see. The use of many different scenes being shot and put together in 1-2 second snippets gives the idea to the audience that there is going to be signs of excitement to struggle which also relates to the audience's lifestyle as it is a Drama series. On the other hand, Eastenders doesn't use a backing track that satisfies the audience as it's a soap and it's commonly known for it's theme anthem right from the beginning of the soap's early years. On the negative side, EastEnders doesn't use additional music which would add extra tense in certain situations but instead of using music they tend to use complete silence. For example, Ian told Phill Mitchell that Max tried to kill him after Ian has said his lines, the camera then cuts straight to Phill's face where the scene just falls silent before cutting to the next scene of the soap. For a soap like EastEnders, this is very effective because it creates more tension between the audience and the actors than a scene with music that describes the atmosphere for the audience.
Lighting between EastEnders & Top Boy are completely different, one being Full Key lighting and the other being Low-key Lighting. EastEnders is the show to feature with Full-Key lighting as it's a family show which is shot in BBC studios. The reason for the producer presenting the show with full-key lighting is to make the show look more appealing to watch. Even the night time scenes look amazing with the full-key lighting being used, it creates and establishes crisp clear images and also enables the audience to see what exactly is going on in that exact scene. An example that shows good source of full-key lighting in the night time is the screenshot above with Max and Phil, where we are able to see Phill grabbing Max in a vigorous way.
Top Boy, on the other hand, majorly adopts low-key lighting as its a TV series mainly to do with drugs & gang violence. Being part of gang violence means that there is a high risk of death. Death resembles the colour black, where the scenery of the whole series is filled with gritty and low-key lighting scenes. This type of lighting is used mainly throughout scenes that have been shot in the night as that's when gang related activity takes place. The way the producer has used low-key lighting in Top Boy is really effective as it makes the series stick to it's intended audience and genre too. Crime Drama; criminality, social life, cultural values, policing, this is all to do within the sub-genre of Drama and this sincerely links with the uses of low-key lighting.
Conclusion
As a whole, single camera production is really fascinating to the eye that you wouldn't realise that it is a single camera production such as EastEnders. EastEnders adopts a lot of rich colours to it's filming production however not enough music to establish a suitable mood for the audience to be in. Top Boy is a single camera series that sticks to it's origins of single camera production. The use of lighting, camera angles and also the camera shots too. All the techniques used within Top Boy gives the audience the true definition of a single camera production; a low budget film. Whereas EastEnders is a high-end budget single camera production.
References
Narrative Structures
Most drama series are usually shown in a linear structure as each episode goes along. Linear means the arranging of images, sounds and events within the film/movie in a ordered sequence. This really makes a genre such as drama seem more realistic because in the real world everything is done in an ordered sequence from the present to the future. The use of a linear structure also helps the audience understand the story more as each episode goes on. This is also useful in a crime drama series such as Top Boy because it leaves the audience wanting to watch more after seeing a cliff hanging ending.
Most drama series are usually shown in a linear structure as each episode goes along. Linear means the arranging of images, sounds and events within the film/movie in a ordered sequence. This really makes a genre such as drama seem more realistic because in the real world everything is done in an ordered sequence from the present to the future. The use of a linear structure also helps the audience understand the story more as each episode goes on. This is also useful in a crime drama series such as Top Boy because it leaves the audience wanting to watch more after seeing a cliff hanging ending.
A serial like EastEnders normally produces realist narratives to explain everyday life that the majority of the viewers actually live through. EastEnders doesnt just base the storyline on one side of everyday life, the directors and writers tend to include top class characters to bottom class characters. This was intended by the writers and directors of EastEnders to make the soap seem as real as the real world.
In addition to this you can also call EastEnders a linear story structure as after each episode it continues from where it left off from. You can also call Top Boy a realist narrative as drug selling and conflicts also happens in the real world but it isn't as strong enough as the storyline in EastEnders as it portrays everyday struggle/life that the majority of viewers go through. For example, 80% of the viewers go through the EastEnders' storyline, whilst 20% of the viewers from Top Boy's storyline go through it too.
Technical Methods (Lighting, Sound, Transitions etc.)
Extreme Long Shot: This is used in productions of films or series to show or fit in the image of where something is set/ongoing. For example the animation that opens EastEnders show. It shows the river Thames from a close angle and then pans out to an Extreme Long Shot before cutting to the main part of the soap.
Long Shot: This is also used to give a clearer view to the audience of a large object and what else is going on within this picture frame. For example, the beginning of every Top Boy episode shows a London Estate building with a time lapse too which shows cars driving by and also the sky changing colour. The way the director also concluded the end of the season was by using the same edit and shot of the estate building before fading it out and this was used so effectively (Also known as an Establishing Shot).
Medium Long Shots (MLS) & Medium Shots: Medium Long Shots are shots used that allow you to pay more attention to the character's body language and actions too. MLS tends to crop out the actor's feet & ankles whilst showing more attention to the legs and upwards. An example of this was when
Phil was fighting Max in the Christmas episode before pulling out a gun.
Phil was fighting Max in the Christmas episode before pulling out a gun.
Medium Shots tend to crop out more of the actor's body, from the feet to the waist which only leaves room for him/her to show hand/arm gestures and facial expressions alongside with body language. An example of Medium Shot was when conflict was happening between Ra'Nell, Dris & Sully.
Close-Up Shots: Close-Up Shots are used to take a closer look at an object or to take a closer look to a actor's facial expression. This establishes to the audience without the character having to express his/her feelings via word of mouth.
An example of this type of shot is when the conflict between Ra'Nell, Dris & Sully resulted to Leon getting shot dead. When this happens the camera cuts from Medium-Shot to a Close-Up shot, which shows Leon's face suggesting that he's struggling to breathe/survive. The camera angle is also at a low angle from his chin upwards.
Another example of the use of a Close-Up Shot is when Max was in the interview room and being questioned about how his two daughters dropped off the top of the Pub's roof. The shot showed Max Branning crying and stressed out after witnessing what happened to his own daughters. Seeing a picture of Max's face shows us that he is stressed out to the max. (No pun intended 🙂)
The use of sound in Top Boy however is completely different to EastEnders use of sound. As Top Boy's episodes always opens with a upbeat mild-grime track it's mainly used to attract the target of the series, which is young teens to young adults. The use of the intro track is mainly to keep the audience engaged till the first scene starts. The producer also decided to use the backing music track from the "Grime" genre for the opening credits because a lot of kids often listen to the popular genre and it also establishes near enough what the series could be about or what you're most likely to see. The use of many different scenes being shot and put together in 1-2 second snippets gives the idea to the audience that there is going to be signs of excitement to struggle which also relates to the audience's lifestyle as it is a Drama series. On the other hand, Eastenders doesn't use a backing track that satisfies the audience as it's a soap and it's commonly known for it's theme anthem right from the beginning of the soap's early years. On the negative side, EastEnders doesn't use additional music which would add extra tense in certain situations but instead of using music they tend to use complete silence. For example, Ian told Phill Mitchell that Max tried to kill him after Ian has said his lines, the camera then cuts straight to Phill's face where the scene just falls silent before cutting to the next scene of the soap. For a soap like EastEnders, this is very effective because it creates more tension between the audience and the actors than a scene with music that describes the atmosphere for the audience.
Lighting between EastEnders & Top Boy are completely different, one being Full Key lighting and the other being Low-key Lighting. EastEnders is the show to feature with Full-Key lighting as it's a family show which is shot in BBC studios. The reason for the producer presenting the show with full-key lighting is to make the show look more appealing to watch. Even the night time scenes look amazing with the full-key lighting being used, it creates and establishes crisp clear images and also enables the audience to see what exactly is going on in that exact scene. An example that shows good source of full-key lighting in the night time is the screenshot above with Max and Phil, where we are able to see Phill grabbing Max in a vigorous way.
Top Boy, on the other hand, majorly adopts low-key lighting as its a TV series mainly to do with drugs & gang violence. Being part of gang violence means that there is a high risk of death. Death resembles the colour black, where the scenery of the whole series is filled with gritty and low-key lighting scenes. This type of lighting is used mainly throughout scenes that have been shot in the night as that's when gang related activity takes place. The way the producer has used low-key lighting in Top Boy is really effective as it makes the series stick to it's intended audience and genre too. Crime Drama; criminality, social life, cultural values, policing, this is all to do within the sub-genre of Drama and this sincerely links with the uses of low-key lighting.
Conclusion
As a whole, single camera production is really fascinating to the eye that you wouldn't realise that it is a single camera production such as EastEnders. EastEnders adopts a lot of rich colours to it's filming production however not enough music to establish a suitable mood for the audience to be in. Top Boy is a single camera series that sticks to it's origins of single camera production. The use of lighting, camera angles and also the camera shots too. All the techniques used within Top Boy gives the audience the true definition of a single camera production; a low budget film. Whereas EastEnders is a high-end budget single camera production.
References
Jack Picone. (September 24, 2014 ). The Evolution Of The Sitcom: The Age of the Single Camera. Available: https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/evolution-sitcom-part-2/. Last accessed 23/11/17.
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