A Brief History of Television Production

In the beginning, TV shows were shot on motion picture film.

Then, videotape came along, and with it, some differences in practices,
staffing, and so forth.

Film was loaded into magazines, which were then placed on the cameras.
Video recorders were some distance away from the cameras.  Instead of the
camera operator turning on the camera, a separate guy ran the recorders.

Film cameras were on dollies, video cameras were on pedestals.  Film cameras
were on gear heads (requiring two hands to operate), video cameras were on
fluid heads.  This meant the video camera operator could also move the camera,
and do his own focusing and zooming.  Instead of three people crewing a camera
(dolly grip, first assistant (focus puller), and operator), it went down to
just one guy (the camera operator).

The film crews were not so thrilled about this, and looked down their noses
at the tape people.  The producers, on the other hand, were happy to spend
less - not just on staffing, but on film stock and processing...

The IATSE camera local did its best to ignore videotape, but it continued to
grow, and the business agent of the sound local decided to organize it.  He
did that extremely well - at one time it had all the videotape people in it,
including the camera operators.  5000+ people...  Video production had come
to have quite an impact on motion picture film crew job opportunities.

At this point, the camera local took notice, decided they didn't like it,
had the IA force the sound local business agent out, and took many of the
videotape crew people into their local.

Then, some years later, with HD television on the horizon, the producers
realized they'd best be shooting on film, so they could transfer to HD TV
later, and then have something that looked decent.  So... everybody went
back to film.

At that time, the tape people graciously accepted and adapted to the film
ways of production.

Next, the HD video gear arrived.  At this point the sound local had gone
from the best business agent ever to the very worst possible, and the camera
local, having lucked into having everyone shooting with film style staffing
again, was not about to let themselves be whacked as they were by videotape
in the 1970s.

So.. The existing videotape contract (commonly called the Green Book, due
to the color of its cover) was ignored, and the camera local cooked up an
entirely new deal, calling videotape "digital imaging."  Highly skilled,
well educated engineers were replaced with DITs, most of whom had no prior
video experience, nor education, at all.  The only qualification was that
they were members of the camera local.  The television technical director,
who, like God, held the final authority over everything, not to mention
who had the education, skills, and experience necessary to effectively
manage all engineering aspects of production, was completely eliminated.

Far worse, for its effect on shows like SSTW, videotape operators were
dropped, and replaced by camcorders.  Just as one inserts a magazine of
film into a motion picture camera, so one inserts a cassette of tape
into a video camera...

There are several problems with this.  Cleaning the heads properly is
essentially impossible.  Occasional hits in the recordings occurred.
The camcorder spooling motors have just about no torque, so checking the
recordings by rolling back and playing them is impossible, due to the
time it takes to shuttle back.  Lining up shots that will be cut or
wiped together by looking at the take in which they'll be inserted is
impossible.  Analog audio is sent over rather long, not to mention
cumbersome, cables all the way to the camera heads.  Et cetera.

This has been offset somewhat by newer recording media, but on the whole
it has set back video production by about 30 years.....

This is why we're where we are now.  Were a tape operator checking the
recordings after each shot, sync errors would have been noticed.  If we
had a technical director the tape op could notify, something would have
definitely been done to fix it.

I realize I'm stepping on a few toes here.  Even though I'm now 66
and, if need be, can easily retire tomorrow, I've never been one to
bite my tongue when I see coworkers struggling with problems rooted
in the history recounted above.  Particularly after spending a good
part of my career developing solutions for them.  I am the one who,
for example, in the 1970s started the use of SMPTE timecode to mark
sync on motion picture film, for this very same reason...  It lives
on, even now that we're back to videotape, where all media record
timecode directly.  Why?  It's a result of pretending videotape is
film.  Or, if you will, featherbedding has prevailed over knowledge
of the medium.  Even the clapsticks should not be necessary, but
in an extremely odd twist of fate, they actually are useful in
working around other problems incurred by this oh-so-sorry state
of affairs.  Heh.

I must also mention that lack of knowledge of their craft can
bring some people to mistakenly think others are responsible for
problems that lie in their own domain.  As is likely now obvious,
this only adds to the effort required to find a solution.

Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to implement a solution for any
of this.  But, I do hope that knowing how we came to arrive where we
are today will be helpful in making informed decisions about how best
to proceed...

Billy Youdelman
+1 310 839 7673
http://MIX.COM/