TV shows where they shoot indoor scenes on video but outdoor scenes on film

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I don't suppose this happens anymore and hasn't for a while? I liked the way it defined such a strong difference between inside and outside, whether it was Porridge, Fawlty Towers or rub 80s sitcoms like Bread. Did any British dramas feature the 'technique' or was it just reserved for sitcoms and perhaps some comedy-drama? I'm wondering what the first all-video British sitcom was.

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:07 (eighteen years ago)

Huh? How can you tell the difference? (Yes, I'm a moron.) I mean, I could tell but I usually don't notice/bother about these things.

― nathalie, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:09 (eighteen years ago)

The classic 'wot?' version was that "Some mothers do have them" where there's a ten minute bit of FSpens on rollerskates going behind buses, under lorries, etc. Until they film the ending in the TV studio where someone's obviously pushed him onto the set, into a cot, now on video and looking totally disconnected to the amazing stuntwork/film from before.

― Mark G, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:11 (eighteen years ago)

it was seamless!

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:12 (eighteen years ago)

excellent question. iirc there was some kind of format change before video came in, to deal with outside shots.

i will try to find my book about ken loach in the 60s. but basically they'd get a limited amount of 16mm for exteriors. but what was the rest done on?

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:12 (eighteen years ago)

It did only seem to happen in sitcoms, something like "The Sweeney" was all film, whereas "I Claudius" was video.

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:12 (eighteen years ago)

Also, was it Charlie Brooker who pointed out the Monty Python sketch, where a bunch of guys are having a meeting then look out the window and say, "Don't look now, but we're completely surround by film!"?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)

yes, Brooker's stuff inspired this thread. love that Python sketch.

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:16 (eighteen years ago)

... and it's not just any old sketch but it's the "Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things" sketch!!

"Shame! Shame!"

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:17 (eighteen years ago)

Iwas a cost thing and a light thing. TV cameras were way better at incandescent lights, film somewhat more flexible. However, there was no such thing as a cam corder until the 80s. So if you wanted to do non-live video from outside you needed a truck with a video tape recorder, and a lot of power. Film is a lot more compact.

― Ed, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:17 (eighteen years ago)

I was trying to remember if Minder used video for indoors.

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:18 (eighteen years ago)

But wasn't it the case that for 'serious drama for grown ups' they felt changing formats for indoor/outdoor scenes would damage credibility? So it was allowed for comedy and kids TV but had to be one or the other otherwise?

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:20 (eighteen years ago)

When Pam was first exposed to a lot of old British TV (I had her on an intensive course of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads almost as soon as she got cleared customs) this was the thing she found most perplexing. "It's so jarring - how did you put it with it for so long?"

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:23 (eighteen years ago)

Emergency Blueski Ward Ten

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:23 (eighteen years ago)

got cleared = Americanism

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:23 (eighteen years ago)

I can think of at least one sitcom which never used film at all, because it never had outdoor scenes - "Rising Damp"... in fact, neither did "Only When I Laugh", by the same writer

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:24 (eighteen years ago)

... but then, I suppose there might be a lot of those, including a lot of American sitcoms, "Cheers"?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:26 (eighteen years ago)

Cheers had a few outdoor scenes (at least in the K Alley era). But it was always filmed in the American technique known as MENKOSCOPE as with all pre-digital US sitcoms for that hallucinogenic 60HZ quality.

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:30 (eighteen years ago)

I was gonna post a less-informed version of what Ed said so instead here's Frank Spencer on rollerskates instead. The format switch doesn't seem as jarringly obvious with the overall YouToob quality.

― robster, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:33 (eighteen years ago)

Arrgh. Delete one 'instead'.

― robster, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:35 (eighteen years ago)

i love it - video is a more intimate medium, anyway, so it makes sense that it would be used for domestic scenes - film is more "public" and thus suited to the outside

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:37 (eighteen years ago)

Menkoscope sounds like a charity.

― peteR, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:41 (eighteen years ago)

"But wasn't it the case that for 'serious drama for grown ups' they felt changing formats for indoor/outdoor scenes would damage credibility? So it was allowed for comedy and kids TV but had to be one or the other otherwise?

blueski on Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:20 (19 minutes ago)"

could be so the dramas could get exported/were seen as less disposable. either way, 'tinker tailor solider spy' wot i watched last night and was a paramount co-production, looked sumptuous inside and out.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:41 (eighteen years ago)

...a lot of dramas were shot exclusively on video

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:44 (eighteen years ago)

yes i was about to say, there don't seem to have been hard-n-fast rules. of alan clark'e 70s stuff, some is all vid, some hybrid, some all film.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:57 (eighteen years ago)

Children Of The Stones does this a lot and very jarringly. but it's a prime candidate for it really, 70s kids show.

― koogs, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:01 (eighteen years ago)

i like that Stewart Lee was comparing Skins to Children Of The Stones on Screenwipe a while back. Like, fair comparison dude!

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:04 (eighteen years ago)

Lat time I remember this "notably" was The Tube "Prisoner" special, where it moved from the usual TV studio for the first five minutes into a 'fantasy' fim for the rest of the show.

― Mark G, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)

'with' not 'to', i should say.

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)

2.4 Children did not feature any scenes on film. Shame as this would've been fun for the episode where Ben is abducted by Roger Lloyd-Trig and taken to Portmeirion for Prizna japes. THIS REALLY HAPPENED btw.

But film/video alternation in sitcoms seemed well over by 1992 anyway.

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:07 (eighteen years ago)

the episode where Ben is abducted by Roger Lloyd-Trig and taken to Portmeirion for Prizna japes. THIS REALLY HAPPENED btw.

I remember that episode.

The first tv show I remember noticing the difference in was Rentaghost.

Were the dramas done all-on-video also ones that were entirely shot in-studio, even supposedly outdoor scenes?

― Forest Pines, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:15 (eighteen years ago)

Wasn't "Triangle" all shot on Video, on a boat?

And as the port-holes caused flares on the VT cameras, they had to close all the curtains?

So they might have well not bothered?

― Mark G, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:17 (eighteen years ago)

Apparently this was a UK TV constant in the '70s, cuz I just saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ('79?) and they said it was quite a break from the norm to shoot it all on film.

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:30 (eighteen years ago)

by 1992 i reckon most everything was done on some form of video anyway.

"i like that Stewart Lee was comparing Skins to Children Of The Stones on Screenwipe a while back. Like, fair comparison dude!

blueski on Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:04 (23 minutes ago)"

it's an odd comparison in terms of genre but not unfair -- it's not like 'COTS' is so stratospherically well-regarded that it shouldn't be compared with other tv shows.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

"The Sweeney" was all on film, and, before that, all those Avengers/ Prisoner/ Jason King/Champions, all that stuff was on film

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:33 (eighteen years ago)

Back then, was independent telly more likely to shoot stuff on film with an eye to selling it to the American networks, who could broadcast in colour? Hence why things like The Avengers and The Prisoner were filmed in colour years before ITV could broadcast it.

― Forest Pines, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:37 (eighteen years ago)

Those were all ITC shows, weren't they? They were all obv. quite expensive to make. "The Saint", "Man in a Suitcase", "The Baron", "Randall & Hopkirk: Deceased"! etc

― Tom D., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:39 (eighteen years ago)

The film / video inside / outside axis / dichotomy is one of the things that made me really dislike television as a kid. I think it jus6t fucking freaked me out on a subconscious, sensory level.

― Scik Mouthy, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:41 (eighteen years ago)

it's an odd comparison in terms of genre but not unfair -- it's not like 'COTS' is so stratospherically well-regarded that it shouldn't be compared with other tv shows.

it was an interesting comparison based on 'depiction of teenagers' thirty years apart but still seemed imbalanced in this respect. an early evening sci-fi-ish affair vs a late night 'real life' drama - of course the former is going to appear more charming and idealist.

they should've compared Skins with Scully or it's 70s equivalent (if there was one) instead.

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:43 (eighteen years ago)

that made me really dislike television as a kid.

you didn't like any TV when you were a kid??

― blueski, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 13:45 (eighteen years ago)

The Goodies used to do this a lot. One minute they would be playing around with the enormous computer on video, the next minute they would be falling off a bike into a pond on film.

They can make video look like film now. If you read "World of Spike Lee" or whatever, it is all explained there.

― PJ Miller, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

What about a show like "Newhart" that recorded its first season on video and then went to film for every season thereafter? I can't think of another show that completely switched recording formats like that.

― Pleasant Plains, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 15:55 (eighteen years ago)

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