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August 13

Films: Shooting the Same Scene Multiple Times

I saw an episode of "The Simpsons" the other day where one of the characters says that directors like to shoot the same scene many times from different angles. Is that true of your "typical" Hollywood movie? I'd think they could just use multiple cameras and shoot the scene once, but I'm far from an expert on film making. OldTimeNESter (talk) 18:19, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actors aren't perfect. They make mistakes. So, taking the content of one shot and the reactions of other actors in another then editing them together may make for a better scene. Plus, multiple cameras all around the set may well show up in the shot. That's not good. Mingmingla (talk) 18:29, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Imagine a this very typical scene: two actors are sitting in a booth in a diner, eating and talking. In the final movie several different shots are intercut together:

a wide establishing shot, showing the booth and the adjacent parts of the diner
a narrower profile shot, showing both actors
a shot over actor A's shoulder, showing actor B in closeup; in some films this might be A's POV instead
similarly, the shot of A from B's side
and perhaps a shot up at a waitress taking an order, and a shot down from the waitress (or again, behind her) looking down at the table

Movie cameras are big, and so are lights, microphones, sound booms, and all the associated equipment and personnel. The placement of these needed for one shot would put them in view for the others. Often the set comes apart, so cameras can be inserted into places they couldn't go if it was a real diner. Sure, the cameras could all hang back and take long shots with longer lenses - but this doesn't give the intimacy that the director wants. Plus the lighting director will often want to re-light the scene for the different shots, to properly fill, key, and silhouette the shots. All of this is, as your question implies, tiresome and time consuming, and it means everything has do be done over and over so all the shots get done (often with lengthy breaks between setups, as all the stuff is moved around). And there's lots of work in continuity and editing, to take the tons of material that's produced and stitch it together into a coherent narrative. Such a single-camera setup is the standard for expensive productions with lots of time and money to get things looking just right all the time. It is much easier, faster, and usually cheaper to film, as you say, in a multiple-camera setup, where there's a camera for the wide shots and individual cameras for several actor's faces. This is how lots of soaps and sitcoms are filmed. But to avoid cameras and equipment showing up in shots, they have to do weird things with the space the action takes place in. Look at the apartments in Friends or The Big Bang Theory, and at how everyone sits around the table. The rooms are long and shallow (like a doll's house) and when people sit at tables they don't face one another - they're all arranged on one or two sides of the square, sitting beside or at a shallow angle to one another. Compare the diner scene in Michael Mann's Heat with a typical dinner conversation in The Big Bang Theory. Single camera, with multiple setups, gives the director much more flexibility and the ability to bring the viewer into the scene - but in addition to the costs in time and money, filming the same dialog many times makes for a challenge for the actors: they have to give the same performance, with the consistent expression and intensity, day after day, and often with the person to whom they're talking not being there (because there's a camera and a sound guy and a big light where they should be. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 19:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are also times when they want different versions of the same scene. An example is He Said, She Said, where we would see one version from the man's POV and one from the woman's. Not only did the angle change with each shoot, but the content was changed to match the recollection of each. There have also been cases where a scene is shown more than once, perhaps due to an unreliable narrator, such as seeing the murderer's false version first, then the real events later. StuRat (talk) 20:19, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is generally called coverage, though our article doesn't offer much. Staecker (talk) 11:27, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Charlie's Angels spin-off ?

I saw an episode of CA that looks like a set-up for a spin-off. In it they work with another group of detectives which looks like a mirror image of CA. Barbara Stanwyck is their equivalent to Charlie, while 3 men (ex-athletes including a pole vaulter and horseback rider) are the equivalent of the Angles. So:

1) Did this spin-off ever happen ?

2) Do we have an article on it ?

Thanks, StuRat (talk) 20:11, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's listed as #92 at List of Charlie's Angels episodes. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:50, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That says it was never made into a spin-off, so I assume there's no article here on the aborted effort. StuRat (talk) 21:58, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

This sort of thing was fairly common- they'd shoot the pilot for a spinoff and air it as a regular episode so they could still use the footage even if the studio decided not to run the spinoff as an actual series. See backdoor pilot. Staecker (talk) 18:40, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is that the aviation version of back-seat driver? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:07, 15 August 2014 (UTC) [reply]

The Yeeeeeees? Man, Quagmire, etc.

Why do some cartoon characters, such as John (the gay man) and the "Yeeeeeeeees?" man on The Sumpsons, or Glenn Quagmire on Family Guy, have the pocket on the wrong side of their shirt? 24.130.24.40 (talk) 23:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the images that I can find of Quagmire online have the pocket over his left breast which is where all my shirts (from various manufacturers) that have pockets have their pocket. The only images I saw that didn't were where he is drawn shirtless or by a fan. All the screenshots from the show had them on the left. Dismas|^(talk) 23:06, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. When I visited the Glenn Quagmire article a few months ago, the image showed the pocket over his right breast. 24.130.24.40 (talk) 23:58, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just realized there is a wrong side. My two "good" shirts confirm it. Which side are the pockets on Flanders, Mr. Burns and the other Leftorium shoppers? InedibleHulk (talk) 23:54, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All the online images I find of John show him in one of two shirts which both have a pocket on the left breast. I can't find any other Simpson's character of note who wears a shirt with a pocket. Kent Brockman and Supernintendo Chalmers wear suits which have a breast pocket on the left. 87.115.180.61 (talk) 00:04, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto for Quimby. When searching online, one really has to trust only screen grabs themselves, not graphics on some third-party site where the character has been abstracted. In those cases a designer may have mirrored character to fit their design, something the producers of the real show wouldn't do. 87.115.180.61 (talk) 00:09, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't watch the show routinely. Is that "Yeeeeeeeees?" man a mimic of Frank Nelson? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:43, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've never actually seen him on the show, but according to Wikipedia he is. In fact, Wikipedia says he's sometimes called "Frank Nelson type" in the script. When the minor characters had pictures, I distinctly remembered seeing the breast pocket on the right-hand side of his shirt. 24.130.24.40 (talk) 01:55, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As far as the in-universe goes, he talks like that because he "had a stro-o-oke!" Not my joke. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:03, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

John's pocket is on the right side (the left side) here. Not that there's anything wrong with having it on the other. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:11, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]