Why are multi-camera techniques used?

 

Multi-camera is where several cameras are set up to on the set and simultaneously record or broadcast a scene.

Multi-cameras are used to give people who are watching TV at home a better experience of what is happening in the film, show and/or live performance. The reason for this is because if people used a single camera it wouldn’t be as effective because you would have to keep stopping the camera and changing the characters position, whereas, if you have multi-camera shot it is able to show different angles of the actors/actresses.

The advantages of using multi-camera shots is that it uses more than just one camera, so this allows it to cover more area of the stage or wherever the cameras are placed. Also, since you are using more than one camera, you can use it for different shots for each camera, this will allow the audience to see reactions and emotions through different angles, and the transitions from one person to another will be smoother as they film the whole thing together than shooting one person and then re-doing it to film the other person. It will also be quicker to film as they do not have to re-do the same scene over and over to get each piece of footage like they would do it they were using a single camera.

However, the disadvantage of using multi-cameras is that it takes longer to set up due to the large amount of equipment. It’s also more expensive than single camera because there are more than one camera people would be using. Furthermore, directors would only be able to use this in studios as it wouldn’t be possible to be used outdoors, and it also hard for the people to hide the other equipment because there are many cameras, so it could pick up equipment in the shot.