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Diane Haithman is contributing to Deadline’s TCA coverage.
The new multi-camera comedy Better With You (formerly called Better Together) — about 3 couples of different ages at different stages of their relationships — will launch during the successful ABC Wednesday comedy block. At TCA, exec producers Shana Goldberg-Meehan and Greg Malins talked about how a traditional sitcom will compare to ABC’s single-camera hit Modern Family. “It’s a family show, and it’s a real believable story the way Modern Family is. I think funny is funny, and the audience will be able to relate to it,” said creator Goldberg-Meehan. Added Malins dryly: “We are using a laugh track in front of a live audience. I’ve heard that the other shows are thinking about switching to our format.” After the session, Malins was still joking: “I will go on record as saying that in two years, we will have the first multi-camera shot-in-front-of-an-audience, laugh-track major motion picture.” But he ended on a more serious note: “It’s a straightforward sitcom which we love, and we hope works.”
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We’re in a weird time when producers almost feel they have to apologize for using the format that, still, produces the most popular comedies.
I mean, ABC is probably throwing this show to the wolves by making it the only multi-cam on their network (or on NBC or Fox), but it’s sad that they know in advance that regardless of whether the show’s good or not, they’re going to get slammed for using this wonderful format.
I think the networks were, 6 or 7 years ago, acting like the movie studios do now. When NBC and ABC had some hit shows in a mock-doc or single camera format, suddenly they acted as though the tide was completely changing. Right now the studios are doing the same with 3D. Pretty soon you’ll have Christopher Nolan apologizing that his latest action packed drama wasn’t filmed in 3D, as though it makes it somehow less valuable to the viewer. Variety is the spice of life, and a various formats can coexist just fine on the same network. The UK has been doing it for decades. When will the US stop pretending it’s all or nothing, then relent to “a few exceptions” which happen to be two of the highest rated sitcoms on TV.
The fact that a format still produces the most popular comedies doesn’t hide the fact that it is an old and tired format.
And I’m not saying that I have something against it, I’m saying that, unless it’s a good show and not some new ratings stunt like some cheap reality show, yes he gotta apologize.
How is it any more “old and tired” than single-cam? Single-cam comedy is older than multi-cam filmed comedy. The networks have gone back and forth between the two (single-cam shows like Gilligan’s Island and The Andy Griffith Show dominated in the ’60s).
Both formats have their advantages; the extra energy of the live audience, plus the fact that the writers actually have to worry about whether an audience will laugh at their jokes, can make a show better (or if done wrong it can make it worse). Just like single-camera can be subtler and richer than multi-cam at best, or sterile and insular at worst. The best multi-cam shows have had better jokes and more interesting characters because of the audience response.
It’s only recently that people have started propounding the crazy idea that there’s no good reason to shoot comedy in front of an audience. And even they don’t apply it to everything, since I don’t hear people complaining that stand-up comedy is old and tired or that The Daily Show should get rid of its audience.
Funny is funny. period.
If it’s single-cam or multi-cam doesn’t matter.
I think multi-cam shows should always use the old CHEERS notification:
(V.O.) “… filmed before a live studio audience.”
Many people think all the laughter in multi-cams is supplied by a laugh track.
Not true. The laughter in top notch sit-coms comes from that audience.
It’s part of the energy. multi-cam is a much maligned format.
The comments above by Lover of TV of how execs figured multi was dead after a few
single-cams proved successful is an extension of a dopey American business model:
If there’s a successful gas station operating on one corner,
competitors will soon build gas stations on all the other corners.
Why not find another intersection ?
Why not build something else people want ?
Is he serious : “we are using a laugh track in front of a live audience” ??
It’s 2010 guys. If you can’t afford more than one camera, don’t do a series. The single camera thing may have worked way back when-but why was that?. It was probably because the WRITEING was good, not because there was only one camera. Audiences today are a bit beyond this by now, using only one camera will serve only as a distraction-which isn’t good. I like to check out Model T’s at car show’s, but I sure as hell don’t want to drive one around.