Dumont Electronicam TV-Film System
On December 24, 2012
- TV History
Dumont Electronicam TV-Film System
The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. For instance, all the late night shows, be it Leno, Letterman, Conan or Fallon all have something in common with the way ‘The Honeymooners’ was done…individual recordings from each camera that allows for post editing to get the best shots for the final cut.
When ‘The Honeymooners’ was shot live in front of an audience, three Dumont Electrocams were shooting live video and filming in 35mm. A kinescope was made of the live show as a guide for film editing and in the final cut of the film, better shots could be chosen. It’s the same process with the late night shows, only now it’s all digital and a lot quicker in post.
Live to “tape” is hardly dead (they ingest to servers nowadays). Every minute in a network edit suite costs $$$ and a typical late-night talk show goes on the air just hours after they finish recording. It may be different with sitcoms, but there are still practical and economic reasons to do a live cut to time and use the iso’s to fix problems rather than piece together a show shot by shot in post.
With modern VTRs space is no issue. Recording to disk, you can have 6 in and 2 out. So live to tape cut by the TD is pretty much dead because of post. All the cameras slaved it is so easy to just change the show in the edit!
I’ve known about the Dumont Electrocam system, but didn’t know that modern late night talk shows had each camera recorded and edited in post production. I always thought it was recorded as it happened live. Thanks for the info!