Eli5 Why do movies, sometimes with just one star actor and usually less than 3 hours long, take years to make, but shows, which often have many stars and have hours in a season, take a winter of summer break to film, and the next season is out?
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Keep in mind most tv series have the same people working on it at the same locations. Not to pick on the big bang theory but it is a great example. Most of the show was the same handful of people existing in one room. Minus a few key moments (Howard returning to earth) really nothing had to be done episode to episode. Maybe this time they go to the comic book store but that really is as adventurous as it gets. No need to rent a place/set something up just go to the local mall for an hour or 2. Maybe add a few set pieces for the episode but that is it.
Most movies have many different locations, different people. Even behind the scenes there is more ‘is this angle better? Well what about this one?’ instead of the static camera that most of the show is filmed from. Add in action scenes that generally isn’t present in the average tv show – now you have to have a stunt double. We can’t risk action movie star to be injured because there is a scene where he does a ‘karate kick’ (or something else equally as generic). What he he somehow breaks his ankle? Then we have to wait for it to get fixed. In a a TV series even if there is a comparable action scene if someone gets hurt…so what? The actress in How I met your mother who played lilly got pregnant, it was just written into the show. She wasn’t available for a season? Written into the show. In a movie something like an offscreen injury requires some in movie explanation. (Mark Hamill in star wars) But it can’t be a ‘oh yeah we were trying to have a kid, it finally happened’ throwaway line. It requires far more work.
Even just focusing on the actors you have to remember that a small part in a movie may require them and they are only available for a short time frame so you have to fly Dwayne Johnson out to Peru as well as his sleeve buttoning person (because he cannot do it himself) before the movie where he is the star needs him and that person to fly to a different jungle in Brazil to wrangle his sleeve. A tv show generally expects that your full time job is pretending to be a doctor at…the young and the restless’s hospital or whatever.
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