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?

Question

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?

In: 132

Answer 1

You are comparing the whole process of a movie vs only the filming of a season of tv. In reality, the filming of an average movie will only take between 1 and 3 months, which is actually faster than season of some large scale tv show. It really depend on the scale of both movies and tv show. Do they film in different location or only in a studio. For example, the pilot of GoT took 26 days of filming, and the first season took between July and December 2010 so 5 months.

But like I said, this is only about filming. GoT was pitched in 2006, the work on the script started in 2008, location were scouted and casting was started in 2009 and by October of that same year the pilot was filmed. Then the filming of season 1 in 2010 before it was aired in 2011.

So if you look at the whole process of season 1, it took 5 years between the pitch and the season airing for the first time.

Now the difference between a movie and a tv show is that for each movie they need to do all the preparation, pitching, writing, location scouting, casting, set construction, financing, etc. TV Show need to do that as well, but they can take shortcut in later season. They might have some casting decision to make for extra and additional characters, but the bulk of the work was already done for season 1. Several sets are already constructed, only new location need to be scouted, etc.

In addition, for tv show you have an overlapping of discipline. The writer work on the script of season 2 when the filming of season 1 start, the filming of season 2 start when the editors are working on season 1, etc.

It’s pretty regular in tv show to have several director for each episode so they can make the pre and post filming work while the other director are filming. That way the filming crew can work non-stop and don’t have to wait for preparation or editing in-between each episodes.