BUI301F2022/TV Comedy: Multicamera

• 

  New Adventures of Old Christine diagram.

Format

1. Catchphrase.
2. Laughtrack.
3. Commercial breaks.
4. Recurring narrative problematic
5. 30-minutes long

Mode of production

1. Shot on film, not live
2. Syndication quality
3. Appears to be live, with a laughtrack

Dominant ideology (Zeitgeist)

1. Characters expressing opposing views
2. Polysemy = many meanings

Seinfeld's innovations

1. Director Tom Cherones

• Let's recreate this scene as a series of still photographs.
• Below are stills from the recreated set, used in an episode of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm and a set miniature by Charles Brogdon.

• 

  The set as recreated for Curb Your Enthusiasm.

• 

  A Curb Your Enthusiasm scene.

• 

  Set miniature.

Texts & resources

• Jeremy G. Butler, The Sitcom (New York: Routledge, 2020).
• Seinfeld scene breakdown materials