For most television shows a major change is adding or cutting a primary character. Most television shows don’t make a major production change in format, especially in the way the show is shot. But NBC’s Up All Night, which stars Christina Applegate and Will Arnett, is making a rare switch from its current single camera format to a multicamera format.
Next week Up All Night will shoot its final single camera episode on a closed set then shut down for three months as it converts to multicamera production. Production will pick up again in February to shoot five additional episodes in multicamera episodes in front of a live studio audience. The new episodes will air in the spring, meaning NBC now has a hole in its prime time schedule for a few months in 2013.
NBC is likely hoping that the new format will “infuse the show with more energy,” or, in other words, jumpstart the show’s ratings, which haven’t set the world on fire since the show debuted last season. Series creator Emily Spivey is a veteran of Saturday Night Live and showrunner Tucker Cawley of Everybody Loves Raymond, so NBC feels comfortable making the switch.
While the move is rare, it isn’t unprecedented: most famously, Happy Days permanently went from a single camera format with a laugh track to multicamera format with its third season. The beloved sitcom eventually ran for eleven seasons and had several multicamera format sitcom spinoffs. So yeah, the switch does have possibilities, but does Up All Night have the Fonz?
via Yahoo! News
