Coronavirus - Impact on live/recorded shows

The soaps are definitely still multi-camera. They have multiple studios each, so can be filming several scenes at once, plus those on the outside set.

Millionaire does need the audience, due to the Ask the Audience lifeline. Once that stripped week is done, the show is done until studio audiences can return.

Have 100 randomly selected people watching from home over a live stream during recording to provide the answers then. Or do it family fortunes style and ask the questions before recording starts.

Or just change the lifeline like they've done in the US, or drop it and go back to three. There are so many options they could go for, I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say Millionaire can't ever return without a studio audience.

Exactly, the audience only feature in a very small part of the programme, and the rest of the show is perfectly suited to filming under social distancing rules.

If programmes don't adapt to this "new normal", then they're not going to be made for a very long time. Format adjustments are going to be easier than coming up with new concepts.

Maybe they could film with a small, socially distanced audience? How much of an audience could you get in there if everyone had to sit 2m apart?

I'm sure they do at least some single camera filming these days, there's some scenes I can't see how they could do multi-camera without walls, props, other cast members etc. getting in the way and cameras being in shot. But then there's lots of trickery they can do that hides that.

Single camera could help with at least some hiding of social distancting though, filming one actor from one angle with one camera, then another from another angle and mixing the two shots to make it look like they're in the same room even though they aren't.

Exactly. There are loads of ways around it. The recent US reboot didn’t have an audience as it was recorded in March.

Also an addition to the list I posted yesterday, there’s also a 6 part series of 5 Gold Rings in the can.

With lots of shows featuring many Internet fed video contributions. Anything special being done for this? Or just racks of PCs being plugged HDMI into the desk (with maybe cropping to hide controls etc) running zoom, teams, skype etc? Or any special broadcaster software or devices being deployed? I.e do they give people special software before their appearances?

Just interested.

After a short cold open where he's seen prepping for last night's "A Late Show", Stephen Colbert's entire monologue was made entirely in cartoon animation format. The rest of the show was recorded at his home.

For single contributions it is as you say just PCs running TV the software, either one with an SDI output or one with a convertor that makes it SDI* You can't really go about sending special software to contributors, you just use what they have, whether that's Skype or Facetime or WhatsApp. Reporters will have special software like Luci Live


I'm pretty sure that in a lot of cases where there's real time interaction, for example Have I Got News For You the recording is taking place via a Zoom chat or similar, but what you're seeing is recorded locally. The quality isn't studio quality but it's much better than streaming Internet quality.


*TV companies never use HDMI except for either feeding a domestic monitor or where they are using a domestic device like a STB or DVD, they are converted to SDI

I’ve seen some setups (often one man band kits that are now deployed as home studios) where talent US and abroad connect the HDMI out directly to the laptop or CNG.

Also is Luci Live just for radio or tv?