Single Camera Production

Single Camera Production: When a TV show, commercial or music video is said to be of single camera production, it means that the whole video was shot with only one video camera.
Single Camera Productions in TV are usually in shows between 20mins and 45mins, Doctor Who for example is a Single Camera Production.
Some sitcoms including Channel 4’s Black Books, Spaced, Peep Show and The Inbetweeners are Single Camera Productions, this is because they are all under 45mins long and all focus on the main group of characters. For example, Black Books focuses on three people, Bernard Black, Manny Bianco and Fran Katzenjammer, throughout the shows run.

Example – Doctor Who

Genre – Science – Fiction

Narrative Structure – Starts off with a short introduction, usually introducing the problematic character, often saying he/she is after the doctor, or he needs his help etc… It continues with the doctor and companion(s) working together to resolve the situation, ending with the doctor succeeding, with the problematic character either helped or defeated. In penultimate episodes, the show may end on a cliffhanger, i.e. the doctor being shot.

Format – The start of the program (after the introduction) has a title clip, showing the TARDIS is a black hole maybe, in this clip, the main character’s (of said episode) actor names appear, followed by the iconic Doctor Who logo, with the BBC logo and finally the name of the episode, and who wrote it. After the titles, various names of producers, editors, casters etc… are displayed at the bottom of the screen. At the end of show, after the trailers for the next episode, a full list of credits is shown including sponsors at the very end, in this case, it will be BBC Cymru (Wales).

Doctor Who mainly revolves around the main character (the Doctor) and the secondary character (Companion, they’re may be a third), as well as the enemy or problematic character and extras. Doctor Who needs only one single camera, as the characters are usually grouped, thus not needing multiple cameras. Also, the series has an episode index of between 7 and 12 episodes per season, each season is roughly every year (with exception to Christmas specials), meaning the camera work has a whole year to film between 7 and 12 episodes.