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What cameras do Disney/Nickelodeon use for their sitcoms?


Samuel Berger

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Does anyone know what cameras they use for shows like LIV AND MADDIE, COUSINS FOR LIFE, BUNK'D, etc?

If I'm not mistaken, the stuff produced by Mar Vista use FS7s, but that seems to be for features.

 

My kids were watching some older Nick sitcoms and they seem to hold up pretty well!

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Depends how you want to quantify that. Truth be told, the camera that the studio is already set up to use, and everyone knows how to use, is generally better than a new camera everyone has to relearn and which needs to be rewired/built into the studio workflow. And dynamic range and color reproduction aren't really that big of a deal when you have total control over the set in the very flat lighting those types of shows involve.

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My Ursa Mini is better than that Sony crap, isn't it?

 

Depends on what want to use the camera for, The usual use of these cameras would be multi camera studio, events and sports productions. The range of long zoom range lenses make the 2/3" hard to beat for that type of work. You also have the camera matching on the fly by the vision engineer,. so it's comparing apples with oranges.

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My Ursa Mini is better than that Sony crap, isn't it?

 

 

Large sensors work against you in the studio and the dynamic range isn't needed under controlled lighting. When you operating a Ped, you may have a shot where you Jib up, Dolly, Zoom and have to pull focus (at the same time) - trying do that with 2 hands is not great. Hence a lot of the time you need the deep focus of a small sensor.

 

On sitcoms in front of a live audience... You only have one proper take to get it and you need a good fast zoom range to make sure you can stay out of each others shots, once you get to 5 camera it gets busy.

 

In this situation aesthetics take second fiddle to practicality. I can shoot nicer images on my DLSR then the JVC studio cams we have in our main studio.. but I would never attempt a multicam live sitcom on DLSR's.

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Thanks, Brian and Phil. I'm fairly sure our kids sticom project is more of a single-camera setup like what Robert Randall does with YAP. I just hope our product ends up looking better than YAP.

 

Here's a sample YAP sitcom, it's shot on the Canon C200.

 

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I think the multi-cam approach is worthwhile if you have a live studio audience - it does create a different performance in the actors and helps time the gags. Its harder to do comedy when the performers don't have an audience to bounce off.

 

But live studio creates lots of limitations and compromises as well. In balance I prefer single camera sitcoms "Spaced, Good Place, Scrubs" etc...

 

I've done a few bits and bobs of multicam studio, as both cam op and director - always found it hyper stressful. I was always so nervous about just keeping on top of the shots. Content would fall by the wayside. Its an incredibly difficult art form to master.

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Yea it's probably 59.94 1080i most likely. That's the "standard" for broadcast in the states. Outside of dramatic series, that's what nearly everything is shot on.

 

Whoa, is this a fact?? My kids watch LIV AND MADDIE on Netflix and the video is choppy 99% of the time so that makes it hard to speculate the framerate. But, 59.94??? That's crazy! why?

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Whoa, is this a fact?? My kids watch LIV AND MADDIE on Netflix and the video is choppy 99% of the time so that makes it hard to speculate the framerate. But, 59.94??? That's crazy! why?

Yea I worked in broadcasting for a long time, everything is done in 59.94 either 720p or 1080i. Nobody uses the 24p broadcast standard, so very few people shoot in that standard for broadcast in a studio situation. Yes there are a lot of single camera shows who shoot 24p, but they have to add 3:2 pulldown.

 

If it's choppy, that could be because it's trying to stream 59.94.

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