Single Camera v Multi Camera - What's Better?

In the world of television, trends come and go.

From the hour long drama to the half hour comedy show, every Showrunner and Executive Producer is looking for that thing that will set them apart from the other shows on air. As a viewing audience we see this in themes like comedies about families overtaking the primetime schedule or the sudden influx of 'nerdy' characters becoming the norm. But the oft forgotten trend that seems to come in cycles for our favorite television shows is the single camera v. multi camera format.

What's the difference?

In the most basic of terms, it's a pretty simple difference between the two. As the names suggest, the main difference is the number of cameras used to film the episode. (There is a bit of a discrepancy as a single camera show typically has at least one other camera doing pick up shots and various background stuff - but that's an article for another time.) Single camera shows are also normally not filmed in front of a studio audience, whereas the multi camera set up is a prime place to have live viewers.

With a multi camera setup there are more cameras catching various angles of the same action the characters are doing, allowing the actors to feed off of the audiences reactions. In a single camera set up, the actions/reactions of the characters are driven more by the director as it is her(his) concept of what makes something funny/sad/powerful they are trying to capture. A multi camera setup allows for laugh tracks - or markers for the audience to laugh at the funny parts. Single camera has a more film like approach that relies on the storytelling to drive home when something is funny or where the writers are hoping to get laughs.

In keeping with the more cinematic approach, single camera shows are able to jump around from location to location and can have a more fast paced vibe then a multi camera show. Single camera shows normally have more scenes as they are not constricted to the same amount of time the multi camera shows must consider. Scenes in a multi camera show can take longer to film as the actors are pausing and waiting for the audience to laugh or gasp at something they said. When there is no audience, the same punchline is able to be conveyed as funny without the pause. It's certainly not because viewers of the single camera show are smarter than those of the multi cam shows! Actually a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have become accustomed to those pauses when we watch shows and the laugh track provided helps to fill the void caused by the pause. If you watch a show without a laugh track, you can see and hear how sometimes painfully awkward the pauses are when we don't have the laugh track to guide us. Also, the shows are written differently to help set the pace to compensate for a live audience vs just the viewing audience at home.

So what's better?

There have been many debates about which way of shooting is better and it's my personal opinion that it really depends on the story being told. If you look at famous multi camera television shows, the pauses that we are able to get help to make the show funny. If it weren't for the live studio audience and the laughing they provided, shows like I Love Lucy and Friends wouldn't have had quite the same feel. Those actors used the pauses the live audiences laughter caused to drive home that something was funny or witty or worth noting. Other single camera shows, like Arrested Development and Scrubs, were able to move at a much faster pace and relied on the locations and surroundings to show the humor in a situation.

It's not to say that they couldn't haven't easily been shot the opposite way. In fact, Scrubs did an episode in the fourth season called "My Life in Four Cameras" that showed how it would look if it were shot with a multiple camera setup. Definitely worth going to NBC, IMDB or Amazon to watch. The episode actually does a really great job of showing a lot of the differences between the two. Exaggerated of course, but you can hear the laugh tracks, you can see the difference in the way they are able to light and you can feel how the pace changes.

In 2015 at a TCA event, there was a panel that talked about "Directing Funny" and it had panelists who wrote and directed many of our favorite shows. What I found interesting was that everyone on the panel had different experiences using both setups and none of them said A was better then B or vice versa. In fact, most of the panel agreed that it is the writing that makes the show. I've included two links that discuss this event and the discussion - take a look to see more about what they had to say.

TCA: Comedy Directors Talk Single vs. Multi Camera, Shrinking Running Times
DGA’s ‘Directing Funny’ Panel Weighs The Single-Cam Vs. Multi-Cam Debate – TCA

Just like fashion and other art forms, television goes through changes and trends. What is popular today is not necessarily going to be popular tomorrow, but you can bet that it will be popular again in the future. In the 90's, when shows like Friends and Seinfeld ruled the air, we had more multi camera shows being made then not. Today, single camera shows like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Parks and Rec and Broad City have had such success that we are seeing more and more shows done in this fashion. While not everyone can agree which way is better, it can certainly be agreed that both formats have created many classic shows that will live long after the final episode airs in reruns.

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