Why Single Camera?

There are many advantages and disadvantages to a single camera production and the reasons why a production may choose to use one camera as said earlier:

 

• Budget and Cost: One major reason why a production company may choose to use only one camera is that the budget is considerably cheaper for a production. This would allow more finance to be assigned to other aspects of the production such as set design etc. 

 

• Time management: One disadvantage of single camera would be that valuable time could be spent on re-shooting scenes from alternative angles for a scene, this valuable time could have large effects on a schedule of a production compared to if they used multiple cameras.

 

There are a wide range of different types of genres which will commonly be associated with single camera productions, this is due to a number of factors such as the budgets and scale of production in single camera productions. While any type of production could be produced with only one camera, only a select few are associated with single camera because of these reasons, the main genres which are associated with single camera productions are generally:

 

• Comedies - Many Sit-Coms (situation comedy) are usually produced through single cameras, this is likely due to the fact that the budgets for these shows are small compared to other types of productions. Miranda is an example of a Single camera TV series produced by BBC 1, the show used only one camera in order to shoot scenes and reshot the scene in order to get different angles. 

 

• Dramas - Many different dramas are produced through single camera, one of which is Downton Abbey, a period drama produced by ITV set in the estate ‘Downton Abbey’ in the early 20th century leading up to World War 1 and after. 

 

• Science Fiction - An example of a science fiction single camera series production would be Doctor Who, it is a TV show produced by the BBC and run since 1963 and has been claimed by the Guinness World Records as the ‘most successful sci-fi show ever’.

 

• Documentaries - Most documentaries are also single camera due to the fact that they are usually very small scaled productions with a smaller sized crew and equipment. An example of a successful documentary series is ‘Making a Murderer’ which I have previously talked about in my ‘Series and Serials’ topic. 

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