Cinema or TV?

[wahiba]

:roll: While there is the endless debate about the 'best film ever' what about good material to learn from.

8O For the amateur/small gauge film maker I would think TV is a better source. Programmes tend to be filmed on smaller budgets, often with excellent storylines and location rather than special sets.

[mattias]

often with excellent storylines and location rather than special sets.

i pretty much hate the "storylines" of most tv stuff, but that's a matter of taste i guess. i don't understand your second argument at all though. to me it seems like movies shoot on location *much* more often than tv, which is always at least 99% studio sets. what tv shows in particular are you talking about?

/matt

[wahiba]

In the region I live location shooting appears regularly on TV, and the movies.

The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway seems to crop up everywhere.

The locally made 'soap' is Emmerdale, which, according to a newspaper report is the most popular foreign soap in Finland! used to be location shot locally, although they might have a reguar set now.

Last of the Summer Wine - a long running comedy is mostly on location.

Many historical dramas are location shot in the UK. On a chat show an actor revealed that in one scene the front of the house was in one town, the interior a house elsewhere and the back a third house.

Currently there is Heartbeat, and its derivative the Royal from North Yorkshire.

I could go on, the number of dramas where one recognises somewhere nearby are quite common on the TV in the UK.

[jessh]

For the amateur/small gauge film maker I would think TV is a better source. Programmes tend to be filmed on smaller budgets, often with excellent storylines and location rather than special sets.

You obviously don't have to sift through the insane amount of CRAP we have here in the US :-) While most of TV seems to be filled with formula sitcoms and "reality" TV, there are some shows that seem to fit what you are talking about. I have heard 24 mentioned in this respect before, and while I haven't watched many of them the premium movie channels(HBO, etc..) have had some shows that are suposadly good and narritive based.

~Jess

[tim]

As far as simply enjoying a film goes, you can't beat the cinema with its deep sound and big screen - especially for scope.

When trying to figure out how effects were achieved, it is handy to have a video that you can inch forward frame by frame without having to buy a prints! A good example is the bridge destruction sequence in Bridge on the River Kwai.

[Lucas Lightfeat]

8O For the amateur/small gauge film maker I would think TV is a better source. Programmes tend to be filmed on smaller budgets, often with excellent storylines and location rather than special sets.

Yes, we are quite unusual in the UK, I believe, in producing some of the best TV in the world, whilst failing to produce anywhere near as many good movies as you would expect from the 4th largest economy in the world and home to the most internationally known language in the world. British films are generally worse than British TV programmes - it's a very wierd thing indeed, in my and many Brits' humble opinions.

As far as inspiration goes, I still haven't traced a source of the very best, award winning short films. I think this would be really good to find. There are so many shockingly bad short films out there, I really wonder where the Oscar, Bafta, Cannes, Berlin, Sundance and Caesar Award winning shorts end up - not in a video store near me. There was a series on C4 a few years back called "shooting gallery" which showed an hour or two of shorts every Saturday night, which was cool, but I don't have a TV aeriel anymore since, although British TV is not as bad as some places, it still sucks really!

Lucas

Lucas