Thoughts about TV sitcom directing while watching

[Larry Kart]

Stumbled into those reruns back to back last night -- MTM first, then Newhart (his early sitcom, where he's a psychologist) -- and while both episodes were typically well-written and performed, I was kind of stunned by the fluidity and economy of the direction on the MTM episode, camera work but also the rhythms of line delivery and the overall "musical" pace/ebb and flow versus the relatively stolid clunkiness in those respects of the Newhart episode. Now the MTM episide was a pretty good one to begin with -- the one where Rhoda and Lou begin to go to Minnesota North Stars hockey games together because they both like the sport, and the newsroom (and especially Mary) begin to think they have a "thing" going on, with Moore playing/revealing her jealous possessiveness of Lou in a scene of marveleous comedy that also cuts fairly deep. (Great work there by a surprisingly subtle Valerie Harper and Ed Asner, too.)

In any case, I'd never really been aware before of how great a role good directing could play in a sitcom. (And again, despite its relative clunkiness in those respects, the Newhart Show episode was still nice.) Has anyone ever taken a close critical look at sitcom directing? Also, while it's obviously like feature-film directing in some respects, I'm sure it's also rather different in others -- because of the serial nature of the medium, the 30-minute length of episodes, the relative smallness of the screen, the fact that sitcoms are seen in homes and apartments rather than in movie theaters, etc.

[carnivore]

Having watched most of the British series 'Life on Mars' I recently saw an episode of the ABC Network American version and was stunned at how the network suits had turned something fast moving, quirky, engagingly acted , with contemporary production values (the Brit prog.) into a piece of leaden, turgid, unimaginative dross that looked like it was made back in the days of 'Columbo', and wasted totally the talents of Harvey Keitel and Michael Imperioli. In fact the direction was so inept that if you had never seen those two actors before you would doubt they had a future in the business.

[Rosco]

I tend to think that the art of good sitcom directing is to coax good performances from the cast. Anything more than that tends to distract from the writing and acting. In fact, if I 'notice' the directing, then it's too much. Less is more.

I find the editing of sitcoms to be far more crucial. That can be the difference between something playing well or falling flat.

[Larry Kart]

I tend to think that the art of good sitcom directing is to coax good performances from the cast. Anything more than that tends to distract from the writing and acting. In fact, if I 'notice' the directing, then it's too much. Less is more.

I find the editing of sitcoms to be far more crucial. That can be the difference between something playing well or falling flat.

Yes, certainly nothing obtrusive, and editing would be part of the meaningful fluidity I'm talking about. Also, though I'd have to look again to be sure, I would think that for reasons of economy alone, edits were/are less plentiful in sitcoms than in movies, that the flow of incident from one moment to the next was handled mostly on the set -- by the performers themselves and through the movement of those performers within the sitcoms' relatively familiar, given spaces.

About performances, though, there was nothing about Newhart's performance on the episode I saw that was less than topnotch, but the relative clunkiness of the direction seemed to preclude much flow from his work into and off of the work of the other characters, although most of them were old hands on the show. On that MTM episide, by contrast, everything seemed to bounce off of everything else.

[jazzbo]

So the difference I think is the actors. . . and what they are used to, live television for instance in the MTM case. . . they were just more "on" perhaps. The director in the BN show somehow couldn't get this "next generation" of actors (stand up comedian, more video-tape-studio-experienced actors perhaps?) to be in the same frame of mind and modus operandum?

[Larry Kart]

So the difference I think is the actors. . . and what they are used to, live television for instance in the MTM case. . . they were just more "on" perhaps. The director in the BN show somehow couldn't get this "next generation" of actors (stand up comedian, more video-tape-studio-experienced actors perhaps?) to be in the same frame of mind and modus operandum?

The MTM show (1970-77) and the earlier BN show (1972-78) were contemporaneous, so I don't think there would be any "'next generation' of actors" problem. Also, I had no impression that Newhart himself (the only standup in his show's cast) was doing less or other than he should in terms of inhabiting his character effectively.

MTM regulars:

• Lou Grant (Edward Asner) Mary's boss

• Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod), the head copy writer

• Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), the vain, pompous, dim-witted news anchor.

• Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) (1970–74), Mary's best friend and upstairs neighbor.

• Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) (1970–75), Mary's snobbish landlady

• Georgette Franklin Baxter (Georgia Engel) (1972–77), Ted's sweet-natured girlfriend and eventual wife.

• Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White) (1973–77), host of The Happy Homemaker show. Her superficially ever-cheerful demeanor belies her true, man-chasing nature. She is particularly attracted to Lou Grant.

BN show regulars:

• Bob Newhart as Dr. Robert Hartley, psychologist

• Suzanne Pleshette as Emily Hartley, his wife, a school teacher

• Bill Daily as Howard Borden, their next-door neighbor, an airline navigator

• Peter Bonerz as Dr. Jerry Robinson, Bob's friend, an orthodontist

• Marcia Wallace as Carol Kester, their receptionist

[Larry Kart]

The principal director of the MTM show by a large margin (see totals below) was Jay Sandrich. Info about Sandrich, from here

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/...sandrichjay.htm

follows:

Although he ventured briefly into the field of feature films, directing Seems Like Old Times in 1980, Sandrich decided quickly that he preferred to remain in television. "The pace is much more interesting," he explained. "In features you sit around so much of the time while lighting is going on, and then you make the picture, and you sit around for another year developing projects. I like to work. I like the immediacy of television."

For many of his colleagues, Sandrich has defined the successful situation-comedy director. "I think it was Jay who first made an art form of three-camera film," said producer Allan Burns, referring to the shooting technique most often used for sitcoms. Although he was modest about his own accomplishments, and quick to note that good writing is the starting point for any television program, Sandrich asserted that he cherishes his role as director in a medium often viewed as the domain of the producer.

"If there's a regular director every week," he stated, "[television] should be a major collaboration between the director and the producer--if the director's any good--because he is the one who sets the style and the tone of the show. He works with the actors. And a good director, whether he is rewriting or not, he is always making suggestions ... and in many cases knows the script a little bit better than the producer because he's been seeing each scene rehearsed and understands why certain things work and why they don't.... So when it's a regular director on a series, I think it's not a producer's medium. It is the creative team [that shapes a series]."

P.S. I'll try to investigate further, but it sounds like three-camera technique means that three cameras were shooting while the scene was done as few times as was necessary to capture good performances, then results from those cameras could be edited/combined (this modifying my earlier thought that editing may be less important in sitcoms than in films; rather, this suggests that it is may be as important but different in nature).

P.P.S. My memory is that a lot of Newhart show episodes were better than the one I saw (though despite its clunkiness compared again to the MTM episode, it had its moments). I would guess then that it was not directed by Peter Bonerz, who directed many BN episodes, but by a director who did few of them.

MTM show directors:

Jay Sandrich

(119 episodes, 1970-1977)

Peter Baldwin

(10 episodes, 1970-1973)

Alan Rafkin

 (4 episodes, 1970-1974)

John C. Chulay

(4 episodes, 1973-1974)

James Burrows 

(4 episodes, 1974-1976)

Marjorie Mullen 

(4 episodes, 1975-1976)

Jerry Paris

(3 episodes, 1971)

Jerry Belson 

(3 episodes, 1972-1973)

Hal Cooper

 (2 episodes, 1972)

Nancy Walker 

(2 episodes, 1973-1974)

BN show directors:

Peter Bonerz 

(29 episodes, 1974-1978)

Alan Rafkin 

(23 episodes, 1972-1975)

Michael Zinberg 

(15 episodes, 1975-1978)

Peter Baldwin 

(12 episodes, 1972-1974)

James Burrows 

(11 episodes, 1975-1977)

Dick Martin

(11 episodes, 1977-1978)

Jay Sandrich

(10 episodes, 1972-1975)

George Tyne 

(6 episodes, 1973-1974)

Jerry London 

(5 episodes, 1973)

Alan Myerson 

(4 episodes, 1976)

John C. Chulay 

(3 episodes, 1976)

Martin Cohan 

(2 episodes, 1973)

Bob Claver 

(2 episodes, 1975)

 

[JSngry]

Peter Bonerz (a Second City alum, iirc, the Chicago comedy troupe, not the TV show company) went on to do a lot of sitcom directing, including some of those first Newhart episodes (again, iirc).

For me, direction is crucial, but writing is key. You got less than 30 minutes (what is it, 22?) to arc a story. In a good sitcom, every sentence goes somewhere towards advancing the arc, and the jokes are either pivots or setups for pivots. The bad, or even mediocre sitcoms don't really concern themselves with this, they just play for the laughs and the AWWWA, becasue people are into the characters more than the stories. Easy enough trap to fall into, you can sell it either way, but...

Looking at both the Newhart & MTM shows, though, think about the pedigrees of those involved. Moore, of course had that legendary Van Dyke run (and so many of those shows were written by Carl Reiner & directed by Jerry Paris, and damned if you can beat that, eh?), Gavin MacLeod was on McHale's Navy (Sgt Bilko at sea, sort of, and if the scripts weren't always all that, the cast sure was...). Newhart, hey, a Chicago guy, right? Not Second City, but Bonerz was, and so, I think I've heard, was Marcia Wallace. Suzanne Pleshette, Bill Daily (remember him form I Dream Of Jeannie, all the patients, Howard Tiley, etc. pros all, experienced, if not necessarily "successful". Same with the MTM show, Asner, Knight, Leachman (Harper I'm not so sure about), they all knew how to work, to deliver to a job what the job needed to have delivered. And back to Newhart, hey - Betty freakin' White y'all, BETTY WHITE!

My point being that, yeah, directing was key to getting those scripts to work like they needed to work. But if the scripts would not have been so tightly written, would any amount of good directing have gotten it to work without resorting to the character, not script-, driven approach? I don't think so. And both Newhart & Moore knew from good writing like not all sitcom "stars" do, albeit thorough diffent set of experiences.

Of course, there's the whole physical comedy-driven sitcom, and no, scripts don't really matter that much there, nor necessarily does direction, not if the actor(s) himself are gifted physical buffoonerists. But for "smart" sitcoms like MTM & Newhart (and for that matter, maybe I'm in the minority, but my overall preference was for the 2nd Newhart series, the "Vermont" one), just as a good bassist can carry a bad drummer, but never the opposite, so does good writing drive the rest of the execution of this type sitcom. Get good, pro actors, give them smart, tight, funny things to say, and the director just has to make sure that they do it. give them something else to work with, and...what?

Plus, let's not forget that both of these shows were taped live, not assembled. Sure, you can still stop when needed, but you still got that live vibe going, that rhythm, that energy to follow through like it's "real", because it is.

That's not to say that "just making sure that they do it" is not an art unto itself, of course it is, but for me, in this type of comedy, it script uber alles.

[Larry Kart]

Well, what do I know. Having tracked down that BN show episode, "Goodnight, Nancy"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0528366/

it was directed by Sandrich. But it was the fifth episode from the show's first season (1972), and things must not have been in gear yet.

[JSngry]

James Burrows, of course went on to do Taxi & Cheers.

Not bad....

And I had forgotten about Dick Martin.

[Larry Kart]

Here's a link to that MTM show episode, "Lou's Second Date" --1974:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0789511/

Unfortunately, you can't watch it from this link, as you apparently can watch that whole BN show episode from the link in my previous post. BTW, a possible explanation for the difference I think I see in the two episodes is not only that, as previously mentioned, the BN show episode is from early in that show's first season, but also that the MTM episode is from 1974, when everyone in that series was really into things.

[DukeCity]

P.S. I'll try to investigate further, but it sounds like three-camera technique means that three cameras were shooting while the scene was done as few times as was necessary to capture good performances, then results from those cameras could be edited/combined (this modifying my earlier thought that editing may be less important in sitcoms than in films; rather, this suggests that it is may be as important but different in nature).

IIRC, the 3-camera technique was pioneered by DesiLu on "I Love Lucy", and remains pretty much the standard for sitcoms filmed/taped with an audience.

I know that with more recent shows (Seinfeld), they would run each scene more than once to get reaction shots from characters, and get back and forth shots during conversations (you can see TONS of little continuity errors in the editing). What I don't know is, did they do a similar thing in the '60s and '70s?

BTW, I get what Jim is saying about the "Vermont" Newhart show. But the "Chicago" show still holds a special place for me, if only because of my crush on Suzanne Pleshette.

[jazzbo]

So the difference I think is the actors. . . and what they are used to, live television for instance in the MTM case. . . they were just more "on" perhaps. The director in the BN show somehow couldn't get this "next generation" of actors (stand up comedian, more video-tape-studio-experienced actors perhaps?) to be in the same frame of mind and modus operandum?

The MTM show (1970-77) and the earlier BN show (1972-78) were contemporaneous, so I don't think there would be any "'next generation' of actors" problem. Also, I had no impression that Newhart himself (the only standup in his show's cast) was doing less or other than he should in terms of inhabiting his character effectively.

MTM regulars:

• Lou Grant (Edward Asner) Mary's boss

• Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod), the head copy writer

• Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), the vain, pompous, dim-witted news anchor.

• Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) (1970–74), Mary's best friend and upstairs neighbor.

• Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) (1970–75), Mary's snobbish landlady

• Georgette Franklin Baxter (Georgia Engel) (1972–77), Ted's sweet-natured girlfriend and eventual wife.

• Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White) (1973–77), host of The Happy Homemaker show. Her superficially ever-cheerful demeanor belies her true, man-chasing nature. She is particularly attracted to Lou Grant.

BN show regulars:

• Bob Newhart as Dr. Robert Hartley, psychologist

• Suzanne Pleshette as Emily Hartley, his wife, a school teacher

• Bill Daily as Howard Borden, their next-door neighbor, an airline navigator

• Peter Bonerz as Dr. Jerry Robinson, Bob's friend, an orthodontist

• Marcia Wallace as Carol Kester, their receptionist

Larry, my point was MTM and Asner were veterans of earlier television than BN and his crew, a time when there was likely much more of a "we have to nail this because we have one shot" energy and philosophy. That could make a big difference in the feel of the recordings.

[JSngry]

Suzanne Pleshette, yeah, indeed!

But I gotta be honest, over time, I found myself looking at Julia Duffy, beginning to have impure thoughts, and did not see anything in her appearance or demeanor to discourage them, probably not least of all that she sorta resembled the girlfriend of a college roommate of mine, a "high fashion" yet totally "Southern belle" type chick who, I found out many years later, was really, really into getting tied up and shit like that.

So ok, that's not what you think about with Suzanne Pleshette. At least I don't. But with a seemingly tightass hoity-toity chick like Julia Duffy played? (Consensually, of course.)

I'm just sayin', moving to Vermont need not necessarily have negative connotations...

[Adam]

P.S. I'll try to investigate further, but it sounds like three-camera technique means that three cameras were shooting while the scene was done as few times as was necessary to capture good performances, then results from those cameras could be edited/combined (this modifying my earlier thought that editing may be less important in sitcoms than in films; rather, this suggests that it is may be as important but different in nature).

IIRC, the 3-camera technique was pioneered by DesiLu on "I Love Lucy", and remains pretty much the standard for sitcoms filmed/taped with an audience.

I know that with more recent shows (Seinfeld), they would run each scene more than once to get reaction shots from characters, and get back and forth shots during conversations (you can see TONS of little continuity errors in the editing). What I don't know is, did they do a similar thing in the '60s and '70s?

And that is exactly what three-camera means. Three cameras rolling, usually one down left, one down right, and one center, but all on wheels. Especially for shows done in front of live audiences.

For shows without live audiences (MASH and others), they usually went back to standard one-camera shooting.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

id give anything to spend 5 minutes locked in a room with Rhoda, Caroline Kennedy, and Lou Donaldson

[jazzbo]

TMI!

[BruceH]

Here's a link to that MTM show episode, "Lou's Second Date" --1974:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0789511/

Unfortunately, you can't watch it from this link, as you apparently can watch that whole BN show episode from the link in my previous post. BTW, a possible explanation for the difference I think I see in the two episodes is not only that, as previously mentioned, the BN show episode is from early in that show's first season, but also that the MTM episode is from 1974, when everyone in that series was really into things.

I think that may be the crucial difference right there. With a really good sitcom you take a an episode from the third or fourth season (as long as the writers are still running on all cylinders) and everyone in the cast is really in the groove, in the right wavelength, whatever you want to call it, and it's just chemistry, it COOKS. OTOH, early in the first season, everyone's liable to be still feeling their way into their roles and how they interact with their fellow performers, their director, their crew, etc.

That doesn't mean that things can't click pretty fast sometimes, but later on you're more likely to get that magical feedback effect.

[Larry Kart]

id give anything to spend 5 minutes locked in a room with Rhoda, Caroline Kennedy, and Lou Donaldson

Ah, Chewy, you're so predictable.

[JSngry]

id give anything to spend 5 minutes locked in a room with Rhoda, Caroline Kennedy, and Lou Donaldson

Ah, so that's what Lou meant by a sammich....

[Jazzmoose]

But the "Chicago" show still holds a special place for me, if only because of my crush on Suzanne Pleshette.

"If only"? As a horny teenager at the time, I considered her the main attraction of the show. Newhart's comedy was great later, but then? Gimme Suzanne!

[Joe]

It seems to me that the distinctive rhythm of Newhart's comedy is key to how that show operates. The "jokes", especially in those early episodes, are all about Bob's reactions to what's swirling around him (the sit in the com), so that the audience is often put in the odd position of observing Bob observing, and find his inability to engage or successfully negotiate the non-straight world itself absurd. So that there are all these constantly shifting distances in any given Newhart performance, let alone show. He definitely learned things from Jack Benny -- silence as punchline, e.g. -- but certainly contributed his own sense of quietly outraged-but-too-polite-to-show-it (as opposed to the Benny blow-up) Midwestern decency.

And that characteristic Newhart hesitation, that stammer.

To make that stammer work in this context, I think, you have to give it space, and time to roll out. Certainly in those early episodes where Bob is the center of attention. I think later episodes of the old Newhart show become less and less about Bob and more and more about the ensemble itself, and those episodes feel more like the MTM show in that the latter was always about the ensemble -- something that the series finale plays up brilliantly. It occurs to me that it just took the BN show a bit longer to hit its ensemble stride, as "the ensemble" was not the original premise of the program.

To use a hard bop analogy... So maybe those early BN episodes are more like the old Prestige "blowing dates", in which soloists dominate the proceedings and a particular form emerges, one that reflects the aptitudes and attitudes of one particularly strong personality. And those later BN episodes are more carefully arranged in the manner of a Alfred Lion-produced affair.

[AllenLowe]

"Rhoda, Caroline Kennedy, and Sam Donaldson"

Sam's toupee would fall off in the heat of passion -

[Dan Gould]

Damn. Now I am going to have to pay attention to something other than when someone says "Hi Bob!"

[Larry Kart]

Last night saw another MTM (an unhappy Lou at an awards banquet), part of a Newhart (another early rather blah one), and two Dick Van Dyke shows last night -- the one with Don Rickles as the hold-up man in the elevator, and the sequel where the the A. Brady show people entertain inmates at the prison where Rickles has been incarcerated for eight years (though Rose Marie's "hotcha" number could be regarded as cruel and unusual punishment).

Lord, was Van Dyke a brilliant physical comic when things called for that, as these two episodes do -- very Keaton-like. And MTM on both her show and the Van Dyke shows -- given the "normality" of her characters, one tends to forget (or at least I do) what a terrific subtle performer she was. Those "takes" of hers!