The First Family vs. Guys with Kids

[vchimpanzee]

Each week someone announces that "Guys with Kids" is taped before a live audience. It is my understanding the last big four network scripted series to look like it was videotaped was either "Married: With Children" or "Home Improvement". "Guys with Kids" does look "filmed".

A syndicated sitcom airing on the My Network affiliate, however, does have that videotaped look. It is "The First Family".

Anyone want to speculate why there is a difference?

 

[cd637299]

I don't know "Guys," but there is a process now that is popular in TV circles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_look

The Miami station which carries "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" seems to do this, and I ranted about it here a while back. Why try to make a game show look like "Gone with the Wind"?

Also, some old analog TV's that run HD broadcasts (or maybe relaying modern cable TV) may have it look that way.

Also, you may have noticed that NFL games going into a commercial will show 1 highlight play going into the spot, looking like film. IMO it's amazing that they can convert so quickly.

If there is someone here on RD that's in the TV biz, I'd like to know more myself. (Not that I'm much of a fan of it.)

cd

 

[vchimpanzee]

I don't know "Guys,"

You don't have to. There's not a scripted series on the Big Four that looks taped.

Reality shows usually "look" taped.

 

[crainbebo]

A syndicated sitcom airing on the My Network affiliate, however, does have that videotaped look. It is "The First Family".

"The First Family" and it's sister show, "Mr. Box Office" are brought to you by - Byron Allen and Entertainment Studios! Cheap production values probably equal that video taped look. I can only catch The First Family at 2AM Sunday morning on my CW station (KSTW), and Mr. Box Office at 4:30 in the morning on KOMO in the middle of paid programming!

-crainbebo

 

[ShawnHill1]

A syndicated sitcom airing on the My Network affiliate, however, does have that videotaped look. It is "The First Family".

"The First Family" and it's sister show, "Mr. Box Office" are brought to you by - Byron Allen and Entertainment Studios! Cheap production values probably equal that video taped look. I can only catch The First Family at 2AM Sunday morning on my CW station (KSTW), and Mr. Box Office at 4:30 in the morning on KOMO in the middle of paid programming!

-crainbebo

I saw The First Family once, and it was decent at best; Mr. Box Office, on the other hand, wasn't worthy to even air on The WB or UPN...just awful.

 

[EricStein]

I don't know "Guys," but there is a process now that is popular in TV circles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_look

The Miami station which carries "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" seems to do this, and I ranted about it here a while back. Why try to make a game show look like "Gone with the Wind"?

Also, some old analog TV's that run HD broadcasts (or maybe relaying modern cable TV) may have it look that way.

Also, you may have noticed that NFL games going into a commercial will show 1 highlight play going into the spot, looking like film. IMO it's amazing that they can convert so quickly.

If there is someone here on RD that's in the TV biz, I'd like to know more myself. (Not that I'm much of a fan of it.)

cd

Sometimes, the use of low-end video equipment can give taped programs a "choppy" feel. Case in point: the daily viral-video magazine "RightThisMinute." That show looks as if they were using computer webcams to shoot it.

As far as the examples in the Wikipedia article, "Family Feud" looks videotaped to me...at least on the local station that carries it. It might just be how the station is ingesting the video from the feed they receive it from.

Getting back to the subject, crainbebo pointed out that this is a Byron Allen production, who uses the Henry Ford "assembly-line" model to TV production. The quality (or lack thereof) shows.

 

[Darth_vader]

"The First Family"?

This wouldn't have anything to do with "The rubbah schwan is moyne" Meader's "The First Family", would it?

The "film look" thing is a cop-out. It's just as bad as that weird thing in popular "music" where they put fake surface noise all over the audio, in a lame attempt to make it sound like it was sourced from an LP or something. Either use a film intermediate or don't.

 

[crainbebo]

No it does not Darthvader - The First Family is about a black family in the White House (not based off the Obama's). In your market, it airs at 8PM Sunday nights on PDX/TV (KPDX 49).

-crainbebo

 

[ajc_trw]

Each week someone announces that "Guys with Kids" is taped before a live audience. It is my understanding the last big four network scripted series to look like it was videotaped was either "Married: With Children" or "Home Improvement". "Guys with Kids" does look "filmed".

Do they still use tape? I'd think anything shot electronically (not on celluloid) would use hard drives. I'd think videotape (magnetic tape for video) would be on the same shelf as computer punch cards and floppy disks.

FWIW I've seen sketches on SNL that use the film look and thought the lighting seemed much better in the 'film look' portions.

Maybe 4k & 8k will put celluloid on the shelf as well. Is that why SAG agreed to merge with AFTRA?

 

[fybush]

There's still some tape being used out in the field - mostly by way of digital tape formats such as DVCPro, which is aging but not quite dusty-shelf-worthy yet. The vast majority of HD field production these days is recorded not to hard drive but to solid-state formats, either expensive proprietary stuff like Panasonic's P2 or, increasingly, to the very same SD-HC or SDXC flash cards that you'd use in a consumer camera.