Obviously there is a lot of variation in the production schedules of different forms of media, but I have noticed that TV series are very good at continually pumping out new episodes, but movies have more leeway to be delayed until the crew can get it right.
But considering the amount of filming/animation/voice acting that goes into producing stuff for TV, wouldn’t it logically make sense that it would take more time to produce a TV show than a movie? As an example, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic consistently had 26 episode seasons, each episode was 22 minutes long, and according the the show’s creator, it is about a year between initial pitch for an episode to final release. At this rate, this is 9 and a half hours of animation, writing, voice acting per year.
Compared to the movie, this was greenlit back in 2014, and was released in 2017 with zero delays. It only last 99 minutes, and while undoubtedly the animation quality got higher, I have a hard time picturing how this alone would have accounted for the production discrepancy. I’d imagine that the voice actors spent more time recording lines for the show than the actual movie because of how much more story they had to do in the show.
Granted, these days most shows do not have this many hours of raw episode runtime. Many cartoons will have 11 minute episodes, or only 20 episodes a season. There are also live action shows that have maybe 10-12 44 minute episodes. Wouldn’t this take up more of the actors’ time than just filming a 2 hour movie?
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The first season of a TV show does take as long as a movie to produce on average. It can take years before the first season of a show is released. It’s only the subsequent seasons that have a shorter turnaround time. That’s because later seasons benefit from most of the initial work being done and they can reuse many assets such as sets, props, CGI models, actors, production staff, etc..
TV shows are repetitive and done on the cheap. They’re done by people who do the same show every year as well. Reusing the same sets, same costumes, same assets, saves time and money. Most minimize how much visual effects they’ll need because they can’t afford to wait 2 years for the cool dragons to render.
They also take far fewer takes than cinema. Movies keep redoing a scene until it’s just right, even if they have to spend 3 days on it. TV shows just take the best they’ve got and keep moving on.
Same reason a casual weekend BBQ is easy to plan and a wedding (usually) isn’t.
Same concept. A location, a bunch of people, a meal, drinks, dessert usually. Some form of entertainment, etc, etc.
It’s just that at every step of the way the bbq is easier, smaller, more low key, so you can get it done a lot more quickly.
Like location. Backyard is great for the bbq, but you need to research and reserve a place for a wedding.
Same on tv. Many are all filmed in one set. Think Friends, just two apartments and a coffee shop that never change. Then take an action movie. A dozen or more physical locations, plus a bunch of green screen locations that have to be computer generated.
So they are the same in concept, but vastly different on execution.
Movies have higher budgets and can spend more time building the world. Also since they take longer to prep and film, they therefore have more content, therefore the editing takes longer. They usually are more VFX heavy. With shows you always have several episodes on the go at all times as you’re using different directors (and sometimes entire crews), and have multiple editors cutting away. VFX is usually accepted as “good enough”.
Just adding a fun anecdote that highlights one way they save time by reusing vfxs. During production of the show Star Trek The Next Generation paramount contracted the famous vfx studio ILM to do the vfxs for the first episode only. Subsequently they’re credited in EVERY single episode of that show (7 season about 25 episodes each) due to their original shots being reused in every episode.
Movies don’t take 3 years to produce. Studios are very strategic about when they release films, based on time of year, what else is being released, etc. Perfect example is that they are already talking about further delaying some releases planned for this year ( ex. Dune 2) due to the strike. Not because the films aren’t done but because their actors won’t be able to do interviews or promote the film due to the strike. So if you make a big summer blockbluster that you want to go out on 4th of July weekend, you may have to wait an extra year if you have something already lined up for 2024. If you ever watch interviews of actors promoting their films they’ll often talk about when they were filming last year or 2 years ago.
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