WHAT'S THE TERM FOR DIFFERENT "COLORS" OF T.V SHOWS?

[nightfly61]

I've wondered this for years:
Why do shows like, for example, soap operas, the news, football games & talk shows have that certain "look" to them, while shows like, say, Happy Days, the Sarah Connor Chronicles & Cold Case all have a "different look" to them?
Is it the type of film used? Is it the type of cameras used?

Now there's a "third, new "look"...the digital look. It's strange to see promos for daytime soaps looking so "clear" & unlike it used to with it's old "inside look" color.
Anyone know what the heck I mean?

 

[Stanislav]

I've wondered this for years:
Why do shows like, for example, soap operas, the news, football games & talk shows have that certain "look" to them, while shows like, say, Happy Days, the Sarah Connor Chronicles & Cold Case all have a "different look" to them?
Is it the type of film used? Is it the type of cameras used?

Um....pretty sure given the examples you cite that you are talking about the traditional difference between live/tape on one hand, and film on the other. That accounts for the obvious difference -- the first group of shows you mention have all traditionally been done live or on tape, the latter all on film. Not sure where the "colors" enter into it, though.....unless you are having a 60's flashback. ("Oh, wow, man....the colors....THE COLORS.....") ;D

Now there's a "third, new "look"...the digital look. It's strange to see promos for daytime soaps looking so "clear" & unlike it used to with it's old "inside look" color.
Anyone know what the heck I mean?

Sort of, kind of.....ah, not really. The whole post is a bit confusing. ???

I know little to nothing (well, nothing, really) about the technical aspects and parameters of digital production and broadcasting. All the soaps should be shot in HD these days, but one thing I have noticed (that may be what you are referring to) is that certain soaps nowadays have an almost "quasi-film" look to them -- that is, they look closer to film aesthetically than typical live/tape production -- not quite as "filmy" as if they were actually shot on celluloid, but definitely different. Must be something they do with the lighting/settings during production, or perhaps the finished product is digitally manipulated to have a different look.

Obviously, we need some of our engineer friends on the board to step in and educate us!!

 

[The King Bee]

Here's an explanation: Until late 1956, everything you saw on TV was either edited 35mm film, 35mm slide, 16mm film, kinescope (recording a live TV image from a special monitor setup onto film, which yielded marginal results at best), or live camera images.

In late '56, the first Ampex black-and-white quadruplex (4 rotating record/play heads) 2" videotape recorders hit the field, with no electronic editing capacity...you actually used a chemical solution to "raise" the waveform on the tape itself and manually spliced the reels together! As time went on, RCA got into the VTR business, color VTRs were introduced, the Ampex Editec non-destructive electronic editor and color-correcting, picture stabilizing and synchronizing time-base correctors came into wide use. Daily-produced shows such as game shows, some news, and especially soaps flocked to videotape. As time progressed, the quality of videotape greatly improved along with better studio cameras. A major jump forward came in 1979, when Sony introduced professional Betacam (as opposed to the home version).

Still, sitcoms, dramas, Westerns, and action shows were (and still are) shot on 35mm Panavision or Arriflex Technicolor film systems, using traditonal film editing techniques. One major difference is, until about the early 1980s, the edited shows were aired on film as well. Today, the unedited film is transferred into a digital storage medium, where they are edited using a wide variety of programs and aired as edited final product from a digital server with a protection copy made, usually onto a Sony Digital Betacam cassette.

Shows that originate on videotape are also digitally edited and enhanced by programs such as Filmlook, which imparts a film-like depth and grain to the material run through it.

 

[LKellerIII]

Interesting discussion. As another person who knows virtually nothing about the technical aspects of "filming" broadcasts, I've noticed one other thing: action type dramas that look like they are shot on film, but then there will be a short action sequence (usually just a few seconds) that has that shiny bright video-tape look. Then, when the action scene is over, it reverts back to the film look.

If this were 20 years ago, I would assume that the show was shot on film, but for some reason it was easier (cheaper, faster, easier to edit, or whatever) to shoot the action scene on tape. However, these days - I'm lead to believe - most TV dramas are shot on HD video, anyway.

So what accounts for this?

 

[The King Bee]

Sometimes editors may vary the degree and depth of video processing to help distinguish between a "flashback" scene, a dream sequence, or the like and the current storyline. This is similar to using black-and-white film or tape in past years in the same way.

 

[hubcity]

Some uninformed opinion from me:

If I remember correctly, for a lengthy period after the introduction of video tape, the recording systems were still too bulky and fragile to take out on the road, so film was a better choice for exterior action sequences and certainly for newsgathering.

As video tape recorders got more reliable, and small enough to package with a camera, newsgathering started to use videotape.

I remember Monty Python pointing this out in a videotaped sketch, in which a meeting adjourns and all the participants try to leave, but quickly realize that the moment they try to exit the building, they're on film. They spend the next sketch plotting a way to get out of the room without being on film, and their effort inevitably results in them being trapped in a Terry Gilliam cartoon.

 

[wbhist]

One factor (but by no means the only factor) was that film-based systems generally used Vidicon tubes (think of the RCA TK-26/27/28 and General Electric 3V and 4V film cameras), whereas videotaped segments employed cameras with (predominantly) image-orthicon (on RCA TK-41 series) and/or Plumbicon (Norelco PC-60/70, RCA TK-44A et al.) tubes. That could be part of it.

This could also explain the relative "dullness" in the appearance of 35mm slide stills, as opposed to what came from digital-based "still stores."

 

[nightfly61]

Not sure where the "colors" enter into it, though.....unless you are having a 60's flashback. ("Oh, wow, man....the colors....THE COLORS.....")

That's why I've had trouble explaining it to people in the past...it's not only the color, but the contrast & tone of the whole product.
Some british t.v shows I remember had it both ways in the same show. Inside shots had that "flat taped look" while outside had a brighter, clear look...Benny Hill was like that.
But it's not the same now-like for example "Cops" has that same "soap opera" tone to it whether inside a building or out chasing someone.
Most commercials are the other "Happy Days" tone, unless they're for your local law office or late night sleaze line.
here's more examples-one way to the other:
Quincy to Silver Spoons
Laverne & Shirley to Cosby
CSI to Jay Leno(whether he's inside the studio or out on the street it's still that same flat look).

 

[Stanislav]

Not sure where the "colors" enter into it, though.....unless you are having a 60's flashback. ("Oh, wow, man....the colors....THE COLORS.....")

That's why I've had trouble explaining it to people in the past...it's not only the color, but the contrast & tone of the whole product.
Some british t.v shows I remember had it both ways in the same show. Inside shots had that "flat taped look" while outside had a brighter, clear look...Benny Hill was like that.
But it's not the same now-like for example "Cops" has that same "soap opera" tone to it whether inside a building or out chasing someone.
Most commercials are the other "Happy Days" tone, unless they're for your local law office or late night sleaze line.
here's more examples-one way to the other:
Quincy to Silver Spoons
Laverne & Shirley to Cosby
CSI to Jay Leno(whether he's inside the studio or out on the street it's still that same flat look).

Every single example you posit is tape vs. film. It's very simple to me -- in layman's (and I am one) terms, if it looks "live" then it is either live or tape; if it looks like a movie, it's film.

 

[Stanislav]

I remember Monty Python pointing this out in a videotaped sketch, in which a meeting adjourns and all the participants try to leave, but quickly realize that the moment they try to exit the building, they're on film. They spend the next sketch plotting a way to get out of the room without being on film, and their effort inevitably results in them being trapped in a Terry Gilliam cartoon.

In the U.K. for many years, that intermixture of tape for studio scenes and film for location scenes was very common in their comedies. They didn't seem to mind the jarring juxtaposition of the two media in the same program as they were used to seeing that. Here in the U.S., except for news shows back in the day, things have pretty much always been all tape or all film. The only real exception was Laugh-In, which did use that British mixture (you note that all the outdoor scenes, like the raincoat guy on the tricycle, were filmed, while and the taped stuff happened in-studio). Early taped sitcoms were largely studio-bound while filmed shows were more apt to add inserts shot outdoors on location. By the late 70's/early 80's the tape equipment was portable enough that you started to see more location scenes in taped shows -- not often, but for special occasions. (Think, for one example, of when Sanford and Son did those Hawaii-themed episodes, and there was a lot of location shooting.)

 

[nightfly61]

Not sure where the "colors" enter into it, though.....unless you are having a 60's flashback. ("Oh, wow, man....the colors....THE COLORS.....")

That's why I've had trouble explaining it to people in the past...it's not only the color, but the contrast & tone of the whole product.
Some british t.v shows I remember had it both ways in the same show. Inside shots had that "flat taped look" while outside had a brighter, clear look...Benny Hill was like that.
But it's not the same now-like for example "Cops" has that same "soap opera" tone to it whether inside a building or out chasing someone.
Most commercials are the other "Happy Days" tone, unless they're for your local law office or late night sleaze line.
here's more examples-one way to the other:
Quincy to Silver Spoons
Laverne & Shirley to Cosby
CSI to Jay Leno(whether he's inside the studio or out on the street it's still that same flat look).

Every single example you posit is tape vs. film. It's very simple to me -- in layman's (and I am one) terms, if it looks "live" then it is either live or tape; if it looks like a movie, it's film.

Then if Jay Leno & soap operas are film then why does every movie(motion picture) I've ever seen not have "that look" to them?
Example: Die Hard vs. Mr. Belvidere

If what you're saying is correct then tape looks more realistic than film.
Wizard of Oz may be the only exception I can think of

 

[fybush]

There's another factor nobody's mentioned yet, and that's frame rate. NTSC video (the analog standard in place in the US for 60+ years) is 30 frames per second (actually, 29.97). Film is usually shot at 24 frames per second.

The "pulldown" conversion from 24 to 30 fps creates something of a blurred-motion effect when watching 24fps content on 30 fps video, and this too is an important component of what we think of as the "film" look.

Digital video can be shot at a variety of frame rates, just by changing the settings on the camera, so it's not uncommon these days to see 24fps video out there - the picture looks like video, but the motion looks more like film.

The distinction is less glaring in Europe, where analog video is 25fps instead of 30fps; this may be one reason the BBC was more willing than US producers to intermix film and video back in the day. (Some of the most obvious transitions between film and video can be seen in "Fawlty Towers" - there are scenes where Basil starts off outside, shot on location on film, then we see him walk in the door and the next shot is on video, shot in a studio weeks later.)

 

[wbhist]

...it's not only the color, but the contrast & tone of the whole product.
Some british t.v shows I remember had it both ways in the same show. Inside shots had that "flat taped look" while outside had a brighter, clear look...Benny Hill was like that.

Besides Laugh-In, one of the closest equivalents in the U.S. was on a circa 1975 Carol Burnett Show which had a takeoff of the Esther Williams musical Dangerous When Wet (Ms. Burnett's version was called "Slippery When Wet," and was part of an overall parody of the MGM film That's Entertainment). In the spoof, there was an outdoor sequence where she was swimming in a pool which appeared to have not been maintained all that well. The upshot is that this outdoor segment was filmed, whereas after she got back inside they switched back to videotape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FpY4aC5l0c (note: on this clip, the last shot of her inside was taken out)

 

[Stanislav]

Digital video can be shot at a variety of frame rates, just by changing the settings on the camera, so it's not uncommon these days to see 24fps video out there - the picture looks like video, but the motion looks more like film.

Scott, do you know specifically of any of the soaps that do this? Because that would account for (mentioned above) what I've seen on some of them lately (in bits and pieces while surfing -- I never actually sit down to WATCH one of those things). It looks more "film-ish" than video, but less so than actual film -- almost like it occupies a "neither fish nor fowl" hybrid middle ground in appearance.

 

[fybush]

Scott, do you know specifically of any of the soaps that do this? Because that would account for (mentioned above) what I've seen on some of them lately (in bits and pieces while surfing -- I never actually sit down to WATCH one of those things). It looks more "film-ish" than video, but less so than actual film -- almost like it occupies a "neither fish nor fowl" hybrid middle ground in appearance.

I don't, specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me. The lines between film and video have become very blurred in the last few years. A lot of the movies we see projected (on film) at the cineplex were actually shot in ultra-high-def video. (Google "Red One camera" to see what the pros are playing with these days.)

I'll try to remember to surf around tomorrow to see if I can spot 24fps video on any soaps...

 

[anotherguyTN]

I made these comments in the tape vs. film thread, but decided to move them here where it fits better.

The process of tape for indoors and film for outdoors that is used in British sitcoms has never bothered me. The Red Green Show from Canada also used that.

I can remember seeing in certain episodes of Cheers or Seinfeld that were on film, but when certain scenes were supposed to be on a TV broadcast, especially news or sports, that it would be on tape. Actually weren't some sitcoms, especially ones with a live audience, taped and then transferred to film?

 

[nightfly61]

Digital video can be shot at a variety of frame rates, just by changing the settings on the camera, so it's not uncommon these days to see 24fps video out there - the picture looks like video, but the motion looks more like film.

Scott, do you know specifically of any of the soaps that do this? Because that would account for (mentioned above) what I've seen on some of them lately (in bits and pieces while surfing -- I never actually sit down to WATCH one of those things). It looks more "film-ish" than video, but less so than actual film -- almost like it occupies a "neither fish nor fowl" hybrid middle ground in appearance.

That's what I meant by that "third, different look". Another place that does this is when MTV or VH1 now have concerts, like I think the Green Concert a couple summers ago...wait no...it was the MTV Video Music Awards was like that. As it is when I see things on an HD flat screen t.v I almost get dizzy it's so clear, I wonder if that's what everything will eventually look like...almost "too clear" :-X...goves me vertigo

 

[nightfly61]

I can remember seeing in certain episodes of Cheers or Seinfeld that were on film, but when certain scenes were supposed to be on a TV broadcast, especially news or sports, that it would be on tape. Actually weren't some sitcoms, especially ones with a live audience, taped and then transferred to film?

Like when on the Seinfeld show he went on Leno. It was the 1st time I ever saw the Tonight Show like that. This belongs in that other thread.

 

[anotherguyTN]

I actually didn't know which thread would be better for my post, since they're so similar. It's like they could be merged into one thread.

 

[oldschooler1]

I really should be working, but can't resist adding to this cool thread!

Why Monty Python, Benny Hill, etc would use film for outside shots, but stay with videotape for studio stuff: Unions. The unions did not allow for videotaping those shows outside. At least, that's what I've heard. I've heard this changed around 1984. Look at the later Brit sitcoms you see on Saturday night PBS...As Time Goes By, etc. -- and you will probably see videotape used outside.

What's tricky nowadays -- is that digital cameras can be set to shoot at a film-like frame rate, producing a film-like feel, yet the image is actually captured on tape (or hard drive). One can buy a good $3,000 panasonic camera that can do this.

Watch those teen disney sitcoms on the Disney channel, or ABC saturday morning. They look like film, but are actually shot w/ digital cameras set at the film rate. To the discerning eye, once in a while you can actually tell they 're faking the film look, and that they were shot with video cameras, not film cameras. Hard to describe, but it's there.

Problem is, the word "film" has entered our language to mean recording images in any fashion -- whether on film (a chemical process), videotape (an electronic process), or on your cell phone camera (a digital process). So, when you say "I'm gonna film you", do you really mean you're going to load celluloid into a camera with gears, then process the film somewhere? I doubt it.

HERE'S A QUESTION FOR THE OLD TIMERS WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN THERE:
Back in the old days (late 50's early to mid 60's, maybe later) when, say, NBC would show a movie -- had the movie been dubbed to videotape for playback, or was a film chain actually playing in master control in NY or Los Angeles? OR -- when a show like "Bewitched" was played back for the network feed,, obviously a filmed show, was it played back on a film chain--or had the episode been dubbed for videotape?