Single camera production essay

Intro: The purpose of this essay is to address the key points and terms to do with single camera production and how it effects filming productions, what advantages it brings and what disadvantages it brings to the table.

Camera: When a single camera productions are made they usually only use a singular camera in the whole of the production this is depending on what type of scenes are filmed, if an action scene is filmed more than one camera usually has to be used. The camera is used as a form of getting the audience  into the production, its main function is to create realism in and create an intimate type of feel. Single camera production scenes are shot with many takes for the same scene to be acted out so the director can capture it from lots of different angles.

Lighting: The lighting in single camera productions is much easier to control that it would be in a production with multiple cameras because multiple cameras have to lit up so it is obviously more easy to maintain lighting with a singular camera.


Sound: Filming with sound in single camera productions is very different to how it would be filmed with multi camera, when recording with a singular camera only one microphone can be used because that is the only place being filmed so when in shot only a few things can be heard when in shot not with multi camera where multiple things can be filmed and recorded with sound. But when recording sound with single camera shots the audience can be more focused and immersed in the scene because they are hearing the dialogue exchange between to characters more easily but all other sound effects can be foleyed into the production afterwards.


Editing: When single camera production footage is filmed  the editing process is quite different to how it is edited through multi camera production, when making multi scenes many cameras can film all over scene, but because all the footage is filmed in a single camera on this type of production it has to be edited after all the footage has been recorded in its final cut, this saves less footage being wasted like in multi camera productions.


Genres and Formats: Television and film productions mostly go off single camera productions, but this usually depends upon the genre, for example; Comedies, romances and Horror and drama films and shows use single camera filming techniques because all of these genres convey a large amount of emotion and dialogue single camera techniques allow the audience to get the most of these emotions because Dialogue exchanges, Jump scares, disturbing imagery and emotional scenes can be better focused on genre single camera genre techniques. But on the other hand of multi camera techniques; Soap operas, Action films and News shows use these techniques to film their shows effectively for example; soap operas use multi camera because they film all over set and need the footage by shorter deadlines than normal productions because they are on everyday of the week. Action films also require multi camera because action scenes are much harder to film with a single camera because of the choreography and getting the right angles.

Multi Camera Techniques: Multi camera and Single camera techniques differ from, various ways, the main and most obvious way is that multi camera uses more than one camera to film with, but there are also other techniques that differ the two more, for example; multi camera is used to cover the entire scope of the scene so more footage can be used in case of the footage being poor, scenes which require more coverage through angles and movement such as action films require multi camera the majority of the time because it allows more footage to be filmed and more angles to be captured so they can edit from all angles making the editing and filming process easier