It's so funny how I'm blase about movie/TV sets and forget how it's very much different (and pretty magical) for people who aren't used to being on a set. I haven't worked in TV in ages, but I remember when I first stepped foot on the set of "The Young & the Restless," I was shocked at how the sets looked bigger on TV and the actors looked so much tinier (mostly thinner) IRL.
It was always so interesting to watch people act, do the different takes, etc, and see if they did it exactly the same each time or changed it up, like you said Matthew Rhys does, and see how the director would talk to them to get what he or she wanted if the actor was doing something different than they'd hoped for. I'm guessing things move a lot slower on a set like "The Americans," though I don't mean like they're lazy; just that they're doing one hour a week rather than five and have a bigger budget (I'd hope), so more care can be taken with each scene.
A soap is not quite the same as a filmed or 1-camera show because Y&R shot on tape and they had 3 cameras running at once, though they did sometimes go back for closeups or retakes. In the booth, the show was actually being edited live up to a point, because there was a technical director (TD) switching from camera to camera on the director's finger-snaps. So when they went to the real editing room, some but not all of the work was already done for them.
Anyway, enough about me and my obsession with movie and TV productions. I'm so happy you had such a good experience and get to share it with other fans of the show! And after it airs you can talk about the spoilers and how the scenes you saw fit in. ;-) What a super-cool experience!
no subject
It's so funny how I'm blase about movie/TV sets and forget how it's very much different (and pretty magical) for people who aren't used to being on a set. I haven't worked in TV in ages, but I remember when I first stepped foot on the set of "The Young & the Restless," I was shocked at how the sets looked bigger on TV and the actors looked so much tinier (mostly thinner) IRL.
It was always so interesting to watch people act, do the different takes, etc, and see if they did it exactly the same each time or changed it up, like you said Matthew Rhys does, and see how the director would talk to them to get what he or she wanted if the actor was doing something different than they'd hoped for. I'm guessing things move a lot slower on a set like "The Americans," though I don't mean like they're lazy; just that they're doing one hour a week rather than five and have a bigger budget (I'd hope), so more care can be taken with each scene.
A soap is not quite the same as a filmed or 1-camera show because Y&R shot on tape and they had 3 cameras running at once, though they did sometimes go back for closeups or retakes. In the booth, the show was actually being edited live up to a point, because there was a technical director (TD) switching from camera to camera on the director's finger-snaps. So when they went to the real editing room, some but not all of the work was already done for them.
Anyway, enough about me and my obsession with movie and TV productions. I'm so happy you had such a good experience and get to share it with other fans of the show! And after it airs you can talk about the spoilers and how the scenes you saw fit in. ;-) What a super-cool experience!